Singular
by Mandriel
Summary: A single pokemon. A single task. A single question. What are you prepared to do for what you believe is right? R/B/Y AU
1. Part One: Chapter One - Flame

**AN: This story can also be found on Archive of Our Own under the same name (account: PreRagnarok), I'm reposting it to to see how it'll do here.**

 **This is a story I've had bouncing around in my head for a while. (Despite what some have thought, it's not based off the _Maze Runner_.) I have no idea how long it'll be, but it'll be divided into three parts. **

**Two quick warnings before we begin. One: This fic contains gore. I'm not saying you'll be seeing blood and guts each chapter, but there is quite a bit at times. Two: The pacing will be relatively slow in this first part. The pace will quicken in the second and third parts as the plot thickens, but this is just a quick heads up for people who aren't huge fans of slow-paced adventure stories.**

 **So now that that's out of the way, enjoy!**

* * *

 _Part One: Chapter One_

The first thing Flame heard was a soft buzzing sound like radio static. It cut through the pleasant darkness of his vision, making him twitch with annoyance at his peace being disturbed. He rolled over, expecting to be met with the familiar comfort of his soft mattress beneath him but instead found only cold, hard stone.

Somebody had been talking, their voice growing steadily clearer as he was dragged into consciousness. A girl's voice, high and concerned. Flame blearily forced his eyes open to see a girl about his age leaning over him, her light brown hair unpleasantly tickling his face.

"Do you know where we are?" Was her first question. Flame hesitantly glanced around, unsure how to answer.

Wherever they were, it's wasn't in his home in Pallet Town. They were in a square shaped room, it's only exit a few metres to his left was a doorway that looked like it had been cut out of one of the high grey walls made from cool stone surrounded them. The walls stretched up to the ceiling where flickering fluorescent lights lit up the room they were in. Flame stumbled to his feet and peeked out of the exit only to be met with a hallway of more stone that split into yet more halls.

"It's a maze." The girl stated when he didn't reply, "I'm not sure how I got here, I just woke up about an hour ago and wandered around until I found you." She looked at him expectantly, waiting for a response. He mentally cursed himself, realising that she wasn't aware of his disability and fumbled for his notebook and pen that he kept in his red jacket pocket to scribble a reply.

 _ _'Do you know how to get out?'__

It was a stupid question, he knew. But he couldn't think up anything else to say.

"If I did, I wouldn't be here." The girl said with a sigh, running a hand with long painted nails through her shiny hair and getting to her feet, "But it can't be far. If we managed to get in here, there must be a way out." She made her way over to him and they both lingered by the room's exit, the two of them a tad unwilling to step into the unknown.

Flame observed her. She looked about eleven, her clothes appeared brand new in stark contrast to Flame's scruffy hand-me-downs from the second-hand clothing shop. The way she carried herself, despite looking uncertain, she held an indescribable grace from the breezy way she walked to the way she clasped her manicured hands together. This girl no doubt had a wealthy, coddled upbringing.

What was a person like __her__ doing in this dirty maze?

What were either of them doing here?

Together, they stepped out into the hall and simultaneously glanced left and right. For the first time, Flame started to wonder whether or not there were wild pokemon loitering in here. He almost groaned in exasperation, in just a few days he was going to receive his training license and starter pokemon from the Professor. He'd been looking forward to this event for years and now it would never happen because some maniac decided to stick him inside a maze without a way to defend himself.

He tried to reassure himself that this was a man-made structure and appeared to be rather well kept. Nobody in their right mind would let wild pokemon stay, right? As well as that, if this place __was__ maintained by people, somebody should find them sooner or later.

Unless of course, those were the very people who put them here in the first place.

The almost silent buzzing punctuated by his and the girl's footsteps echoing off the walls were the only sound to be heard. At least if they were attacked by something, they'd be able to hear it coming.

To his right, the girl shifted uncomfortably, hugging her bare arms as she kept glancing behind them as if she expected somebody to be following them. She chewed her lip and finally broke the silence.

"My name's Leaf." She blurted out, her voice agonisingly loud, "What's yours?"

Flame wrote his name down in his sketchbook and held it out without looking at her. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead at the twisting and splitting path.

Left, left, right, straight, right, left. They had no idea where they were going. Every turn was a guess that, for all they knew, could be leading the further and further away from their intended destination.

Leaf, obviously put off by the awkward silence Flame carried kept trying to break it at every opportunity with one-sided conversations and the occasional question.

"Do you think anybody else is here? No, that can't be right. We would have run into them by now. How big do you think this maze is? I say, we're rather lucky to not have run into a dead end yet- Ah, never mind. Looks like we'll have to turn around." They walked wordlessly for a few more minutes before she continued, "So where are you from?"

 _ _'Pallet Town'__

"Oh, down south. That explains your poor appeara... Um, I mean, your unique sense of fashion." She coughed, trying to hide her embarrassment, "Well, I'm from Saffron City."

Of course she'd be from the wealthiest city, Flame was hardly surprised. She looked like she'd never once stepped a toe outdoors.

Figuring he might as well keep the conversation going, Flame wrote, __'I have a cousin in Saffron'.__

"Really?" she didn't sound as if she believed him and he felt his face burn slightly as she cast a scrutinising stare in his direction. If only she knew just who that cousin was... " _ _You__ have a-"

That was when they rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a snarling rhyhorn.

Flame had only seen pokemon like that on TV. He'd never imagined that they grew this _big_. It towered over the two of them, drool dangling from its rocky maw as it surveyed them with its beady eyes.

Leaf shrieked, spinning on her heel and sprinting back the way they came, Flame close behind her. The ground rumbled and shook as the pokemon gave chase.

They charged through the unfamiliar corridors, Flame blindly following Leaf as she darted wherever her adrenaline took her. He could feel the rhyhorn's hot breath on the back of his neck and something brush against him as he forced himself to run faster.

Its deep growls filled his ears, almost as loud as its thundering footfalls as it got closer and closer and closer...

And then just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone. The two of them slowed down to a halt, doubled over and panting. They stared back the way they came as Flame sank to the floor, exhausted. He couldn't believe a sheltered girl like Leaf could run that fast.

"I... Think we lost it!" Leaf gasped, wiping sweat from her forehead and grimacing in disgust as she wiped it on her skirt, "I can't believe this, what kind of place is this anyway?"

An endless maze, wild pokemon, no other people in sight... What was going on? Flame groaned and drew his knees up to his chest, the last thing he remembered that night was going to sleep back in his room and then he woke up here. But as much as he wished it was, this couldn't be a dream. Everything was too vivid and detailed for that to be possible. What he would give to see a familiar face in this nightmare, though...

Just as he thought that, a voice sounded from behind them, "What was __that__ all about?"

Flame turned his head to see Rain Oak; his next-door neighbour, the grandson of Professor Oak, and most importantly: Flame's lifelong rival standing with folded arms and his famous insufferable smirk plastered across his face.


	2. Part One: Chapter Two - Others

_Part One: Chapter Two_

Leaf almost jumped out of her skin when she heard his voice, half expecting that monstrous rhyhorn to return. Relief flooded over her when she realised it was just another boy, possibly just as lost as she was.

The newcomer's smirk widened at the sight of Flame, "Fancy seeing you here! And who's your new girlfriend?"

Leaf's mouth dropped open and her face flushed red. Any liking she may have felt toward this new boy evaporated instantly and she made sure he knew it by fixing him with the most withering glare she could muster.

"Rain, who are these?" A heavyset girl with short, choppy blonde hair appeared at his shoulder and observed them with bored yellow eyes.

Straightening up and pushing away her embarrassment at Rain's's previous comment, Leaf said, "My name is Leaf Rosenstern." She held out her hand for the girl to shake, as her parents had taught her was proper etiquette when introducing yourself to somebody.

"Sparky." Said the girl, shaking her hand with what looked like a trace of amusement on her face. Leaf couldn't help but smile a little too. At least __she__ seemed friendly enough.

"Oh, and this is Flame." Leaf indicated to the mute boy; who still hadn't moved from where he was sitting on the floor, still trying to get his breath back. His red eyes were fixed on Rain, delivering him a dirty look. She glanced between the two of them, wondering whether or not it would be appropriate to be filled in on any history the two may have shared.

"Rain and I were thinking we were alone in here, then you two showed up." Sparky told them, "Have you found anybody else here?"

Leaf shook her head, "No, but there could still be more. Maybe someone in here might know how to get out."

Rain rolled his eyes and made a noise of exasperation as he folded his arms, "So you've elected yourself our team leader, now? I suppose __you__ have a perfect plan to get out, don't you? Do you even know where we are?"

"Well, no. But-"

Rain cut her off, "We're alone in an unfamiliar place - a __maze__ \- that we don't know our way around. We'll starve to death before we'll find our way out on our own. And not to mention whatever was chasing you shows that there are wild pokemon in here, too. By the looks of it, we're completely defenceless as well."

"We have to try __something__." Leaf insisted weakly. Her dislike for this boy was steadily growing. At least she now knew the possible reason behind Flame's apparent dislike for him.

"Sure thing, we can wander aimlessly around until we find some kind of exit through pure dumb luck." Rain drawled, "If there even is an exit at all. But hey, you're in charge here so what can I say?"

"I never said I was-"

"Right, right. You just run in here like you own the place and start bossing us all around. Figures, little rich girl probably isn't used to telling all of us peasants what to do."

"I wasn't! What's your problem, anyway?" and how did everybody immediately know she was rich? Was it the hair? Or the clothes?

"We must have been brought here for a reason." Sparky interrupted the two of them, "Nobody in their right mind would drop four kids off in a place like this if they didn't have a purpose for it."

Rain rolled his eyes, "What use would we have hanging around in here? Alright, since I __am__ Professor Oak's grandson I guess I __do__ have some kind of use. But as far as I can see, the rest of you are worthless."

Out of the corner of her eye, Leaf caught sight of Flame writing what she guessed was going to be a cutting remark on his notepad. She was just trying to think up something nasty to respond with - Oak's grandson or not, nobody called her worthless! - when she felt Sparky's hand on her shoulder.

"Alright then, Rain. You're right. We really are worthless." even Flame looked up from his furious writing, "It looks like despite these circumstances, we really can't work together. But I can't complain, you're just better than the three of us."

Everybody stared at her with blank expressions.

"So," she continued, taking Leaf by the arm and helping Flame to his feet, "we're going to stop being such a burden to you and - as you put it - 'wander aimlessly around until we find some kind of exit'. We wish you the best of luck trying to get out on your own." She turned them around and led them in the opposite direction, Leaf could see she was struggling to conceal a smirk of her own, "Come on guys, we're not wanted here."

"Wait!" they stopped and turned to see Rain hurrying up to them, "Fine, fine, you win... Whatever this is. Let's stick together or whatever. Just don't leave me alone."

Sparky grinned, "Fantastic! I always knew you could cooperate!"

All Leaf could think about was how in the world the other girl was able to put up with somebody like Rain before she and Flame had found them.

Rain scowled, "I'm just making sure my dumb rival doesn't get himself killed before he gets his first pokemon, ok? I need __somebody__ to compete with." He and Flame exchanged glares.

"Fine by me!" Sparky said happily, turning back to the endless maze before them, "So left or right?"

The next half hour was spent in uncomfortable silence. Leaf wasn't used to being around people this long without conversation of some kinds but was unwilling to break the absence of sound in case Rain took the opportunity to spite her. She'd never once imagined the grandson of the famous and kindhearted Pokemon Professor to be anything like what __he__ turned out to be.

"I'm telling you, this is a lost cause." Rain said at last as they turned yet another corner identical to the last, "We're going around in circles if you ask me."

' _ _Good thing nobody did__ ' Flame wrote.

Leaf didn't like it, but she was starting to agree with Rain a little. Her legs were sore from walking, she was starting the feel the effects of hunger and thirst and there was no end in sight. The exit could be on the other side of the maze for all they knew, if there still was one. Maybe they really were just walking in circles.

Absorbed in her thoughts, she didn't notice Flame and Sparky had stopped ahead of her and bumped right into them. For a moment, she thought that they'd stopped for a rest. But then she caught sight of their stunned and horrified expressions and followed their gazes to what lay in front of them.

It was a raticate, its brown fur stained red with dark blood. One of its front paws had been twisted all the way around and half its tail was missing. The only indication that showed it was still alive was the occasional twitch of its bent and crooked whiskers.

"Holy crap." she heard Sparky gasp. Leaf herself felt like vomiting as she shrank behind the other girl and covered her eyes. What could have done this to a pokemon? Another awful thought struck her: was whatever did it still nearby?

Rain must have been thinking the same thing, "We need to keep moving." He insisted, glancing nervously behind him. Leaf couldn't help but feel a sick sense of satisfaction in seeing the boy's cockiness vanish.

Flame tugged on her sleeve and held up his notebook, ' _ _We can't just leave it here__ '

"It might have rabies!" Rain groaned, "And do you really want to carry that thing around for who-knows how long? That might make it even worse!"

Flame looked over at Sparky who grimly nodded, "As much as I don't like it, Rain's right. It looks half dead anyway, there's not much we can do."

Leaf looked away as he turned his gaze to her. She didn't want to leave an injured pokemon alone and defenceless to die, but it looked like from now on she would have to prioritise her own safety before that of a wild pokemon.

Flame glared darkly at the ground as he shoved the notebook back into the pocket of his red jacket and gloomily followed after Sparky as she approached the motionless rodent.

As she drew nearer, its eyes suddenly flew open and fixed on her. The four of them froze and it unsteadily got to its paws, dried blood tearing tufts of fur from its pelt as it ripped itself from the crusting red puddle beneath it. A ragged snarl echoed through the maze as bloodied foam gathered in the corners of its mouth.

Slowly, Leaf backed away. She just thanked Arceus that it was too injured to be a real threat...

Just as she was thinking that, the creature launched itself at them, a red and brown blur against the dull grey floor.

For the second time that day, she was fleeing for her life.


	3. Part One: Chapter Three - Four

_Part One: Chapter Three_

Leaf was soon in the lead, blindly blundering through the maze, hardly aware if she was being followed or not. She turned right and skidded to a halt, Sparky and Rain almost crashing in to her.

Before here were at least five more raticates, advancing on them with their teeth bared.

Rain was screaming at somebody to run, Flame had taken off in the opposite direction and Sparky wasn't far behind. Leaf sprinted after them, catching glimpses of the brown pokemon out of the corner of her eye each time they passed a fork in the road. The air was filled with screeching and the sound of sharp claws against stone.

Leaf felt her throat tighten as her lungs screamed for air. Soon, they would be cornered. And then what? They'll be ripped to shreds no doubt by the feral rodents. She'd never see her parents or her home or her pet meowth again...

Before her, Sparky ducked into a passageway to the right and the others charged after her. They staggered to a halt to find the road path ended.

"Door! Door!" She was screaming, motioning to the way they'd come through. Leaf had missed it, but a large metal door was sitting wide open beside the doorway. Rain gladly slammed it shut and the four of them backed away to the other side of the room, staring as if they expected a tide of raticates to come bursting through at any moment.

Leaf listened hard, straining to hear the previously deafening sound of hundreds of paws slamming against the floor in pursuit but was met with nothing but the panting of her companions.

"Everyone alright?" Sparky gasped, clutching at a side stitch.

"I hate this place." Rain groaned, not taking his eyes off the door, "Do you think that'll hold them?"

They turned their heads at the sound of pen on paper and watched as Flame wrote, ' _ _I think they've gone__ '.

"Already?" Sparky questioned, not sounding at all convinced, "They're probably just biding their time, waiting for us to let our guards down."

Well, that wasn't at all a pleasant thought. Leaf pushed her damp fringe from her eyes as she glanced around the room they had found themselves in. It was similar to the one she had woken up in, and the one in which she'd found Flame, the only difference being the door. It was square in shape, but upon closer inspection Leaf could make out small indents in the surface of the floor all across the room.

"Guys, look at this." She crouched down and traced the pattern with her finger, the whole thing resembled a circuit board of some sorts.

"This place keeps getting weirder and weirder." She heard Rain mutter as Flame crouched down beside her.

' _ _This is new__ ' he wrote.

Sparky hadn't moved from where she stood, staring hard at the door, "Flame, what you said before about thinking the raticates were gone, I think you're right."

"Great, do you want to give him a medal for that brilliant observation?" Rain deadpanned.

Sparky ignored him, "This room's unique to any part of the maze we've been in before. It seems a little too perfect that we just so happened to take shelter here."

"Are you saying that we were __led__ here? Why? So we can look at all the pretty patterns? And I can't see why some wild pokemon would - or could - lead us to this specific spot. What's so special about it, anyway?"

Leaf's eyes followed a collection of lines close to her as they stretched across the room. Perhaps this was a map? But that was impossible, the lines never split. They bent and curved and...

Flame seemed to have noticed it, too. The two of them ignored Sparky and Rain's bickering as they made their way to the centre of the room. A rectangle had been carved into the stone, about half a metre long and twenty centimetres wide. Flame ran a nail across its indents, they looked as if they'd been carved much deeper than the others. He pressed down on it with both hands but it didn't budge.

"Maybe if we..." Leaf grimaced as she dug her nails between the stone and tried to lift it. She made a noise of disgust as she felt her nails scrape against rock and hurriedly drew away, "On second thoughts, maybe that's not the way to go." she muttered, examining her chipped nails.

And she'd had them professionally filed and polished just the other day.

Flame drew her attention away from her ruined fingernails with a tug on her sleeve. She looked down to see him indicating to the indents around the rectangle and then around the room. She glanced around her and then back at the shape.

All the lines in the room came directly from it. She watched them wind beneath their feet and through the stonework into nothingness...

No, not quite nothingness.

She hadn't noticed it before, but each side of the room had a small circle engraved in it, just a bit smaller than her palm. The lines led right to each circle from the rectangle at the end of their journey across the room.

Sparky had said that they were led here. What if...

"Guys? Guys?" It took two times to get their attention, "Look at this." she told them what they'd found. Rain sidled over to the closest circle and pressed it experimentally.

"I guess it won't hurt to try." He begrudgingly admitted, pressing it once more. Leaf saw it sink into the wall before springing back again.

They each took a position at each button, Leaf stepping over to the one closest to the door. She hesitated, praying to Arceus that it wouldn't release another wave of rabid raticates.

"On three, ok?" Sparky said, eyes flickering to each of them in turn, "One, two, three!"

* * *

It took a few tries until they all pressed the button at the same time. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, there was a scraping noise beneath them and the rectangle in the centre of the room shifted and began to slowly rise.

They kept their buttons pressed a few seconds longer, just in case letting go too soon would reverse the event. Flame was the first one to approach it, Leaf following behind him. He crouched down before the box, reaching out to touch its cool surface. He felt the others behind him leaning forward in anticipation.

Drawing in a deep breath, he swung the lid of the box open.

Inside were four shining red and white Poke Balls.

Flame had no idea what he was expecting. Food, a map maybe. But pokemon? He doubted any of them had a training license yet, this couldn't be legal. If they got caught, there would be fines.

Oh who was he kidding, who could catch them here?

Slowly, he reached out and took one and peered into the translucent red top half of the ball. His own pokemon. Finally, he had his own pokemon. He'd been waiting for this moment for years, since he'd first heard their voices and found that he did indeed have a voice - just not one that could be heard by other humans.

He just didn't think this moment would come when he was stuck in a maze

Rain reached over him, almost knocking him over as he snatched the next Poke Ball, "Charmander? Then I'm taking the squirtle. You should have known better than to pick first."

Flame blinked in surprise, he hadn't even stopped to check which pokemon he had picked up. He pressed the ball's button and the red lizard popped out in a flash of light.

His breath caught in his throat. __His__ pokemon. A friend that could hear him and would stay with him forever. Finally, his ability would no longer bring him isolation. For too long he'd watched the psychic abilities of his other family members flourish, Sabrina's future vision in particular. But now, finally, he really felt like he was part of them at last.

Sparky's face split into a wide grin and she grabbed the Poke Ball at the end of the line, releasing a yellow electric mouse from the capsule, "A pikachu? I always wanted one of these!" She handed Leaf the final pokemon, "I guess this is yours then."

A charmander, squirtle pikachu and bulbasaur were soon sitting before them, staring at their new trainers in interest.

" _ _Charmander?__ " Flame reached out with his mind to the small pokemon, " _ _Hey, my name's Flame. I guess I'm your trainer now.__ "

" _ _Great. Trainer.__ " The bulbasaur said snidely, " _ _If you ask me, I would have preferred to have been left alone in the wild. But then, who cares what the pokemon thinks?__ "

But the charmander's eyes were glimmering with excitement, " _ _I have a trainer!__ " she all but squealed, flinging herself into Flame's arms, " _ _Look! Look, I have a trainer!__ "

Flame laughed at her enthusiasm, should he nickname her? He didn't want to keep calling her 'Charmander' like she was just another face in a crowd, he wanted something a little more unique.

" _ _Does the name Ignus sound alright to you?__ " He questioned, " _ _It's Latin for fire__."

Ignus looked no less happy, " _ _I have a name now! Did you hear that, guys? My trainer's named me!__ "

Beside him, Leaf crouched down beside her new bulbasaur, her grin not disappearing even when he sourly turned his back on her, "I think it likes me!"

Sparky was still gushing about how cool her pikachu was and Rain was struggling to get his squirtle's attention from where he was still sniffing at the Poke Balls they'd just come out of. Flame couldn't hide his smile as Ignus nuzzled up against his shirt. For the first time since they'd entered the maze, he felt relaxed.

"About time you got this far." A new voice sliced through the short-lived excitement.

Flame felt his stomach drop. He'd never thought seeing another human being would fill him with so much dread.

The door had disappeared and a man in a dark blue hood was standing at the end of the hall, right before the maze bent into a corner. The only part of his face that was visible were a pair of wide eyes above a black mask that covered the bottom half of his face. Three raticates bushed against his legs, sharp yellow teeth gleaming in the artificial lighting.

The room was plunged into silence.

"Now that you've finally met each other, let's get this show on the road." His voice was steady and controlled, as if none of his surroundings were of any surprise to him, "Now shall we?"

With an ear-splitting screech, the three rodents charged at them.


	4. Part One: Chapter Four - Ice

_Part One: Chapter Four_

Rain let out an embarrassingly high shriek and leapt back, "Squirtle-"

Fortunately, his pokemon didn't need any specific instructions to understand what he had to do. He launched himself at the nearest raticate, retreating back into his shell as he struck.

Within seconds, the previously peaceful room was filled with wailing and tussling pokemon. His squirtle was tossed into Sparky's pikachu, who crackled with electricity as it struggled to land a good hit on the agile raticates.

All while this was going on, the hooded man observed them from afar with those hard eyes of his. Just looking at him made Rain's blood boil. Who did he think he was, attacking them like this? And if he was the trainer of those raticates from before that chased them to this very room.

And if Sparky was right about them being led here...

Did that mean that this man was the one behind all of this? What kind of sick maniac would drop __kids__ in a maze and attack them? And for what? His own disgusting amusement? Rain clenched his fists, ready to charge down the hall himself to punch that bastard right in his masked face.

A pained screech jerked him out of his thoughts and he looked down to see his squirtle flung down at his feet.

"You're all clumsy." The man said with a sigh, "Even more so than I had thought you'd be."

"Clumsy, are we?" Rain said with a snarl, "Squirtle, use Water Gun!"

His pokemon looked at him in embarrassment and he buried his face in his hands, "Don't tell me you're not strong enough to use it..."

"Let's try this again, now." The man raised his right hand and the snarling raticates sprang at Leaf's bulbasaur. Both the trainer and the pokemon squealed in terror as the bulbasaur was buried beneath a whirlwind of teeth and claws. Leaf tripped over backwards and shrieked for somebody to do something.

The man in the mask groaned in exasperation and waved his hand to call his pokemon off, "You know, I really had been expecting more out of you." He told them, "You were all chosen because I thought you'd be a little more in control of yourselves and others but..." He sighed, "Well, I suppose beggars can't be choosers. Looks like I'll just have to make do with you as it is."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Rain demanded. Chosen? Of course __he'd__ be chosen, everybody was obsessed with his grandfather. But who in their right mind would think somebody like Leaf should be stuck in a maze? What kind of potential did __she__ have? He glanced to her cuddling her injured and weakly protesting bulbasaur, almost on the verge of tears.

Real professional, Leaf.

He looked down at his squirtle, ready to issue a command when he saw that it had already lost interest in the raticates and was nibbling on the leg of his jeans. He pulled away, face burning. Great, now __he__ looked like an idiot, too.

"So __you're__ the one behind all this." Sparky spat venomously, "Care to explain why?"

The three raticates circled them, Rain was finding it impossible to keep his eyes on all of them. Any second now, they could strike at their trainer's whim.

"Right now, that's not important." The hooded man told them, eyes narrowing slightly, "What I am going to tell you know you should remember, so listen up."

Flame's charmander threw herself at one of the raticates with a defiant screech, only to be thrown right back. The man made no indication he'd seen.

"You've each received your pokemon, you'd want to stick with it as it's the only one you'll be having during your stay in the maze. Your simple task is to find your way out without getting yourselves killed."

"How are we supposed to do that?" Rain demanded, "There are wild pokemon that want to kill us, and what are we meant to eat? Each other?"

"You can find food, water and healing items throughout the maze," the man told him calmly, "though by the looks of it, you'll have to rely quite a bit on dumb luck. As for the exit, you'll have to find it yourself. Nobody will give you a map or any kind of indication as to where it is so how long you'll be in here really is up to you."

"But __why__ are we here?" Leaf questioned, hugging her bulbasaur to her chest for dear life.

The man ignored her completely, "I wish to... __Challenge__ you throughout your time here. Giving up is not an option. It's not my job to babysit and make sure you make it out alive, that's nobody's job but yours. Do I make myself clear?" He was met with a frosty silence, "Whether or not that's a 'yes', I don't care. You have everything you need to survive and if you don't... Well, that's nobody's fault but your own. I'll be keeping in touch with all of you as you flail helplessly through every obstacle set in front of you. It will be most amusing."

That was when Rain had had enough. He charged across the room and into the passageway where the man was standing, ready to slam his fist into his arrogant face. Something latched onto his back and he hit the ground hard, winding him as the raticates pinned him down.

The man looked down at him and sighed, rubbing the back of his head with a gloved hand, "Now I'm really feeling sorry for your companions." He murmured.

"Who do you think you are?" Rain snarled, struggling beneath the combined weight of the man's pokemon crushing down on top of him.

"Who exactly I am isn't important at the moment." The man said cooly, waving his hand and his raticates clambered off Rain to scurry back to their master, "But you can call me Ice." he reached into the pocket of his hooded jacket and retrieved a handful of creased papers, letting them flutter to the floor. Without a word, he turned on his heel and stalked away from them, vanishing around the corner. Rain charged after him and his raticates but it was too late, they'd disappeared without a trace.

He heard a strangled gasp from behind him. Leaf was on her knees, (she'd finally let go of her stupid bulbasaur) having smoothed out one of the dropped papers and staring at it with wide green eyes. "Flame, you need to see this." She handed the paper to the silent boy before desperately grabbing ahold of the others, shaking her head.

With a final glare in the direction Ice had disappeared in, Rain strolled over to her and snatched one of the papers out of her hand.

 _ _MISSING: Rain OAK  
Last seen May 17th, Pallet Town__

Beneath was a picture of him and his grandfather's contact details.

"Today's the 19th." Leaf said faintly, a sleek pink phone held in one trembling pale hand, "We've been in the maze for two days. We've been missing for two whole days."

Trying desperately to find a way to rid himself of that horrible cold sweat feeling, Rain leaned over to look at her missing poster, "A two million Poké reward?" He read aloud, "Wow, your family really __is__ rich." And to think, that was just something he'd thought up over the top of his head to insult her. He never once thought he'd actually been right.

Leaf gave him a dirty look, "We've been abducted and our families are scared for our lives; and all you can do is talk about how I'm __rich__?"

Though it was petty, the snide remarks were slowly calming him down. As cruel as it might seem, there had always been something calming about taking his fears and frustrations out on others. Even if his heart was violently thudding in his chest and a sickening feeling was flooding through him, he sure as hell wasn't going to let that show. "At least your family could afford a good photo of you, I look like I've got something up my nose." He looked back down at his picture. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Flame rolling his eyes. "Do you have something to say?" Oh wait, "Hold on, you can't."

Flame's eyes narrowed and he straightened up, charmander by his side. He pointed at Rain's absent-minded squirtle and then to his pokemon.

Alright then. If it was a battle he wanted, it was a battle he got. Finally. Rain had been waiting too long to be able to fight Flame like this.

His rival's charmander dropped into a crouch, her flaming tail lashing from side to side and he opened his mouth to order his own pokemon to attack when a bright flash sent him stumbling back. When his vision finally returned, he saw a disorientated Flame and Sparky standing between them, her arms folded and pikachu sitting on her shoulder.

Well, at least __somebody's__ pokemon was semi-competent.

"Let me break it down to you two in case you haven't figured it out already." Her voice was as serious as Rain had heard it that day, "We've officially been kidnapped by some hooded psycho and it looks like nowhere is safe. So if the two of you would stop fighting and start thinking of how we're suppose to get out before we're all horribly killed, we'd all be most grateful."

"Ice said that only dumb luck can help us get out." Rain told her sourly, "So I say we should focus on not starving to death, since that should be our first concern."

With a sigh, Sparky held up her hands, "I'm all for doing anything for surviving." She said, eyes flicking back and forth between the two boys, "But whatever problems you have with each other, sort it out. Because the last thing we need is to fight among ourselves when we can't heal our pokemon. Am I making any sense to you?"

Rain looked over the Flame, who lowered his gaze and nodded wordlessly. So typical of him to give in when challenged by some kind of authority figure. His mother, his teacher, Rain's grandfather. Here in the maze where adults were absent, Sparky seemed to be the second closest thing to authority with her sharp words and commanding gaze. The first closest was undoubtedly Ice. And even then, Rain was unsure if Flame was silently issuing orders to his pokemon or the charmander was just attacking on her own accord.

Thinking about the pokemon make him look back at his own, cheerfully scraping at the ground with its little blue paws as if it hadn't been viciously attacked just a few minutes ago. He didn't want to keep referring to it as 'the squirtle', it was his starter. The first of many for his great arsenal of unstoppable pokemon companions. For a long time, he'd had a list of possible nicknames for his future pokemon team for when he'd finally become a trainer. But that was when he'd had his entire team planned out and none of the spots in his dream team were open for a drooling squirtle.

 _ _Well, plans change__. He thought to himself. After all, a great trainer had to be able to adapt to the unexpected. And being trapped in a maze with three people he didn't particularly like and having an unexpected starter thrust upon his certainly did qualify.

In his ideal image of a team, he'd pictured him having a gyarados for a water pokemon. Fast, strong and near unstoppable in his mind. Well, it looked like he didn't need a gyarados when he had... This.

Quinn. That was the planned nickname for his trusty water dragon. A name he could call on to defeat any opponent with a mighty roar and gnashing teeth. That could decimate an opponent's entire team with a swish of its powerful tail.

Oh well, the goofy squirtle __did__ look a little bit like a Quinn after all. Kind of.

"I don't like this place." Leaf's quivering voice broke the silence. It appeared that being chased down twice by wild pokemon and finally being confronted with her kidnapper was finally starting to get to her. Rain could feel himself wearing a bit thin as he swayed slightly on his feet. A day of walking and running had exhausted him and he wanted to do nothing more than to fall right asleep.

"I doubt he'll come back." Sparky told the other girl, glancing around the room, "But this place gives me the creeps too. Maybe we could cover some distance before we settle down. We might find some food or a place to heal our pokemon. Ice did say that those were hidden around here somewhere."

"You're taking advice from a kidnapper now?" Rain questioned, raising his eyebrows. Flame may have been unwilling raise a question against the self-proclaimed team leader, but Rain wasn't ready just yet.

"Do you have a better idea?" Sparky asked tiredly, "We're tired, we haven't eaten in what - two days? - and our only defence lies in a handful of battered pokemon. Speaking of which, we might as well return them to their-" she turned around to the box they'd found the pokemon in only to see that the Poke Balls had disappeared. One of Ice's raticates must have taken them when they weren't looking, "Right, never mind. Looks like they'll have to walk then."

Rain sighed and looked down at Quinn, who was drooling a thin trail of bubbles from his mouth as he stared up at him with round eyes, fluffy tail wagging. At least he seemed energetic, Rain really didn't want to have to carry him far. Unused to carrying weights for long periods of time, the squirtle was bound to get heavy after a while.

"Right, so where to now?" He asked.

Sparky just shrugged on shoulder as she sidled over to the room's exit, poking her head out. Leaf wiped her eyes with her sleeve and clambered to her feet, finally setting her bulbasaur down on the ground where he immediately shambled away from her, glaring in distaste back at his trainer. Flame was still staring at the ground in front of him, arms wrapped around himself as if he was trying to console himself with a hug. His charmander tugged on his arm, snapping him out of whatever trance he was in and leading him toward the door.

"So," Sparky said with an air of somebody who had no clue what to do next, "Left, right or straight ahead?"


	5. Part One: Chapter Five - Psychic

_Part One: Chapter Five_

Sparky hadn't expected to become the leader. If you could call it that, though.

But somehow, she ended up leading the other three kids and their straggling pokemon through the maze for the next two hours until exhaustion forced them to set up camp. They'd been unable to find another room and were forced to take refuge in an intersection. Sparky chose this place, despite the protests of the others, as she figured they'd have four directions to flee in if they were attacked in the middle of the night.

Or, perhaps day. Without natural light, nobody was sure what time it was anymore. Leaf was the only one of them who had a phone (that was almost completely useless due to there being no signal wherever they were), but it had died long ago and left them to guess for themselves.

Sparky sat with her back against the wall, one hand stroking her pikachu's soft fur. She still had to nickname her. Something cool, like Colonel or Zap. Actually, maybe not Zap, what about... Stripey? Actually, there was no way she'd call her first pokemon that.

Leaf shifted uncomfortably on the hard floor, complaining under her breath about the poor conditions as she tried to pet her aloof bulbasaur that she'd nicknamed 'Kojo' sometime during the day. Her pokemon kept trying to put distance between the two of them, something that Leaf didn't look like she was going to allow anytime soon as she held him like a lifeline.

Rain was standing away from the group, struggling to get his disinterested squirtle's attention. His pokemon somehow found the dull walls fascinating and dedicated long periods of time to staring a t them.

"Quinn, use tackle! Tackle! I said tackle!" He groaned as Quinn the squirtle rolled over onto its shell and flailed his limbs in the air, unable to roll back, "I can't believe this..." He cast a dirty look in Flame's direction, "Don't you dare laugh." He warned before turning back to his attempts at training his starter.

The mute looked away, but his eyes still glittered with amusement. His charmander was fast asleep on his lap, no doubt exhausted after the events of that day. She couldn't help but wonder how old their pokemon were, were they old enough to look after themselves yet? She had no clue how to properly care for a baby pokemon and she doubted that the others had any idea, either. If that was the case, it would probably just be another one of Ice's cruel 'challenges' he had in store for them.

But from what she'd gathered so far, their pokemon seemed to be pulling their weight just fine. They'd kept up with the rest of the team during their trek through the maze with little complaint. The only setback they'd faced so far was the absence of any kind of sustenance within these walls, but Sparky hoped that that issue would soon be resolved. After all, Ice wouldn't have gone through all the trouble of capturing them and setting up this elaborate game just for them to starve to death within a few days, would he? If this was all a game, he wouldn't find that entertaining at all and if it was a test... Well, what was stopping him from just capturing four new kids?

She didn't like to think like that. But as each minute dragged on, thinking positively was getting progressively harder. With Rain's pessimistic cynicism and Leaf's occasional sniffling that she made no effort to try and hide, Sparky could really feel the dropping morale of her companions having an effect on her. She couldn't keep reassuring everybody that everything would be alright when everything around her was making it painfully clear that no, everything would __not__ be alright and saying that made no difference at all. It didn't make them find food faster or get them any closer to the exit.

So they ended up here, in the middle of a four-way intersection, struggling to get some sleep on solid rock with empty stomachs.

Sparky highly doubted tomorrow would be any better.

She, the apparent team leader was silently giving up, Leaf's complaints were getting steadily more frequent and Rain's frustration was visibly growing toward his squirtle, who at that moment looked more like he wanted to play with Kojo than listen to his trainer.

Only Flame looked like he was actually trying to remain civil in some way, keeping to himself throughout their journey and staying out of everyone's way. Heck, he hadn't even responded to Rain's occasional jabs since Sparky had told them to knock it off back in the room where they'd gotten their pokemon.

Thinking back, she can't remember ever having talked with him (if you could call it that) in their time of knowing one another. Sure, it had only been a few hours but something nagged at her that if she was to spend possibly months with these people, she might as well get to know them. That and something about the permanently silent boy intrigued her. She was uncertain whether or not he was physically unable to speak or if he simply chose not to. Either way didn't matter too much to her, as long as he had that notebook and pen, he could communicate just fine.

There was something that she wanted to ask him about that she'd been thinking of since she'd received her pikachu and him his charmander.

Careful not to wake her pikachu (Electro? Volty? Squeaks?), Sparky shuffled over to where Flame was sitting.

"So I guess now we have to fight your way of here." She said, "Sure beats running away though. That was bound to get old after a while."

Flame just nodded and continued to gently pet his pokemon. For a minute, they sat in silence and watched Rain's frustrated figure giving up any form of training as he flopped to the ground, defeated. Quinn waddled up to him and affectionately headbutted his leg before snuggling up against his side.

"Have you nicknamed yours?" She asked, indicating to his charmander. Maybe if he actually got out his notepad, he'd be a little more likely to give more lengthy responses.

Sure enough, he shifted to retrieve the item, careful not to disturb his slumbering pokemon. Carefully, as if he was afraid he might wake her, he wrote ' _ _Ignus__ '.

Sparky had no clue what the hell that name was supposed to mean, but at least he was now 'speaking' to her. And Ignus was a better name than she could have thought up for her own pokemon.

She pushed that train of thought aside and asked what had been nagging her for the past few hours, "So we've got our pokemon, things are starting to look up a little." She paused, trying to think of how to phrase this, "Look, I don't want to sound rude or insensitive or anything, but how do you think you're going to battle if you can't speak? You're going to have to find __some__ way to communicate with Ignus. Maybe - if you want - we could make some kind of sign language?"

Flame's pen was still for a moment, as if he was debating whether or not to respond - or how he was supposed to. Finally, he leaned over his pad and started writing. Sparky leaned over and read the words as they formed on the page.

' _ _Two hundred years a ago, a psychic pokemon blessed one of my ancestors of the Hashimoto. Ever since then, her descendants have been born with some kind of psychic ability. The power differs depending on the person, e.g. telekinesis for some and telepathy for another. I don't think everyone in my family has a power though. I don't know them too well, my father was a Hashimoto but my mother wasn't, so he had to leave them for marrying an outsider woman.__ "

"Why's that?" Sparky questioned, fascinated by history for the first time in her life.

' _ _To keep the bloodlines pure, a lot of Hashimotos end up marrying their cousins or slightly more distant relatives.__ ' Ok, that was just gross.

"So your pokemon-talking ability...?" They were beginning to get a little off topic here. Sparky's eyes swept across the hallway to check nothing had been sneaking up on them all this time. Leaf had finally stopped fidgeting and Rain was starting to settle down, Quinn cuddled up beside him. She was starting to regret picking an intersection to sleep in, now there were four directions they could be ambushed from.

' _ _Every ability has a positive and a negative effect.__ _ _I was born unable to speak. It wasn't until I was four that I found I had inherited the Hashimoto psychic abilities. Sometimes something is sacrificed for the ability and sometimes the downside is the ability itself. E.g. my cousin Sabrina can see into the future, but she can't change it no matter what she does.__ '

"Doesn't that, I dunno, make her power completely worthless?" Flame just shrugged one shoulder. "So you can talk to pokemon at the cost of you being unable to talk to humans..." The last part she said more to herself. Her mind was racing, this was really an asset. If Flame could understand pokemon, their opponent would find it harder to predict whatever attacks would be thrown his way. As well as that, Flame would be able to listen to and reason with their own pokemon if there was ever conflict between them - he might even be able to get information out of one of Ice's raticates...

Slowly, the basis of a plan was forming in her head. They needed to get out of here as soon as possible. And if Ice wasn't going to help them with that, maybe there was somebody else who could...

She was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of Flame's pen scratching across paper and she glanced down to see what he was writing.

' _ _For most of my life, I imagined that I'd get my starter pokemon and travel around Kanto, gathering badges and battling people, catching new pokemon. Instead, I'm sitting here in a maze with two people I don't know, my jerk rival and a kidnapper who said he'll be watching us.__ '

Sparky laughed humourlessly, "Well, things in life have a funny way of turning out."

There was a short pause as Flame wrote before hesitantly showing her, ' _ _I hope you don't mind me asking, but is Sparky your real name?__ "

Sparky laughed for real this time, startling Rain, "Oh heck no, I wouldn't even call my pokemon that." she still couldn't hide her smirk, "No, my real name's Dolly. But well, in my opinion it sounds even dumber than 'Sparky'."

She heard Rain snicker, "Dolly." he echoed, "That sounds like something you'd call a mareep."

"If you call me that one more time, I __will__ punch you." Sparky warned him. For a while, she had actually been made fun of for her name. And then she learned to solve that problem with violence and nobody teased her for being called 'Dolly' ever again. But in these conditions, she had a feeling that punching her only allies wasn't a very good idea. Especially if __she__ was the one who wanted them to work together.

She sighed and ran a hand through her short, choppy hair. She was too tired to argue with Rain right now, all she wanted to do was fall asleep and forget that that day had happened. But she couldn't help but glance around her at the four paths that joined together in their junction in a perfectly reasonable paranoia that something would come charging at them any second.

Flame caught her eye and hurriedly scribbled something down on his notepad ' _ _I'm not tired, sleep__ '.

Sparky protested, "You really don't have to..." He continued writing.

' _ _I'll wake you up in a few hours or if I see anything. Just sleep__ '

She sighed but at the same time, she couldn't help but smile a little, "Alright, __dad__. You win." she shrugged off her aviator jacket and folded it up into a makeshift pillow. As she lay down, her pikachu tiredly approached her and curled up against her neck with a tired sigh.

 _ _Captain__. The name came to her as she drifted off to sleep. __Yeah, that's a good nickname. Way better than 'Squeaks'...__

She was abruptly woken by Flame a few hours later. The lights had dimmed and something was projected against one of the pathway's walls. Leaf was sitting bolt upright, Kojo clutched against her chest and for once, the bulbasaur wasn't complaining. Rain was standing, facing the projection with his hands balled into fists, glaring at it as if the images had committed a terrible crime.

Sparky stumbled to her feet, wiping sleep from her eyes. Captain crawled blearily up onto her shoulder as she staggered over to see what the projection could be showing.

It was a news report, a middle-aged woman was sitting behind a desk as images of the four of them were displayed behind her. Her face was calm, impassive as she spoke.

" _ _The current whereabouts of Leaf Rosenstern, Rainor Oak, Dolly Surge and Flame Hashimoto are currently unknown, having disappeared three days ago. These cases are still believed to be linked due to the similar circumstances surrounding their vanishings.__ "

Clips of their homes, their rooms, their families played in a blur. The newsreader's voice sounded over the montage.

" _ _Tragic new evidence has come to light recently regarding the fate of the children.__ " Sparky felt her heart leap, people were looking for them! She almost laughed, not caring about the 'tragic' part of the reporter's sentence at all. The only thought that consumed her was how all this time she'd been convinced it was up to them to break out of this place. But she hadn't once thought that the outside would would be at the same time attempting to break __in__. All they had to do was survive until their location was discovered...

The next few sentences that came from the reporter made her freeze.

" _ _Blood matching that of the missing children has been discovered on the rocky cliffs just off Fuchsia City. How it got there is currently unknown but it appears that the children have met their end by an unknown hand. Investigations for the culprit and searches for their bodies are currently underway by Gym Leader Koga as the families of the children anxiously await results.__ "

The video abruptly paused, lingering on the image of a bloodstained cliff before switching off entirely.

The intersection was plunged into silence as the four of them stared at the place where the projection had been playing. They were missing, presumed dead by their friends and family. Sparky wanted to scream ' _ _we're stuck in a maze somewhere with a psycho, come rescue us!__ ' in vain hopes that it might, by some magic reach their ears. She was dimly aware of Captain's whimpers and her weak attempts to comport her trainer as she slid down the wall, never taking her eyes off the wall in front of her. Maybe this was all a cruel joke Ice was playing on them, a 'challenge' as he had called it. They couldn't __really__ be presumed dead to the world, they were still here! Lost, but very much alive! How could they be given up on so easily? Why were their corpses being searched for when they were still breathing?

Leaf was sobbing, her knees drawn up to her chest and hands masking her face, not even caring when Kojo took the opportunity to escape her grasp. Flame hesitantly placed a hand on her trembling shoulders, though he was just as pale and shaky as everybody else.

Blood... Blood... Their blood... How could it have gotten onto that cliff? And enough of it so that the authorities thought they were __dead__. How could a freak like Ice be able to fake the deaths of four children?

 _ _Who was that man?__

Finally, Rain's voice cut through the tense atmosphere, "Dolly __Surge__? Please tell me I wasn't imagining that." But even he sounded shaken.

Sparky sighed and rubbed her palm against her forehead. All she wanted to do was wrap herself in the dark embrace of sleep and forget the entire day had ever happened. Without another word, she lay back down on the icy floor and buried her face in her makeshift pillow.

It was a long time until any of them got some sleep.


	6. Part One: Chapter Six - Quiet

**AN: For those who have already been reading this fanfic before this chapter had been posted, to avoid confusion, I'm here to inform you that I changed Lake's name to Rain. While proofreading chapters, I found myself getting their names mixed up so I decided to avoid confusion, I should change his name entirely.**

 _Part One: Chapter Six_

" _ _Are you feeling ok, Flame?__ " Ignus questioned, blue eyes swimming with concern.

Flame just shrugged one shoulder, not looking her in the face. He was hungry, thirsty, tired, lost, and everyone he knew thought he was dead. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall. What he would give for this all to be a dream...

He felt Ignus clamber onto his lap and tug at his shirt, " _ _You're going to get out of here, don't worry!__ " she told him, her voice strangely enthusiastic. Though judging from the charmander's excitable personality, Flame didn't find her tone out of the ordinary at all, " _ _I'm going to help you!__ "

Despite everything, Flame couldn't help but smile a little at her words. She was young and naïve, but he would be lying if he said her energy wasn't infectious, " _ _I know you will.__ "

She settled down and curled up against him, holding on to her fiery tail so she wouldn't accidentally burn him and within a few minutes she was snoring softly. Flame envied her ability to fall right asleep like that. Exhausted as he was, he highly doubted he'd be able to drift off. The same seemed to be happening to Rain, who was lying awake, staring at the ceiling lights. The girls had miraculously managed to get back to sleep after some time, much to Flame's surprise. He hadn't thought __any__ of them would have been able to.

Perhaps that was simply because they weren't him. Sure, they too had been chased by the raticate, through the halls, running for their lives, unable to afford to slow down for a minute, running, running, running. But all they'd heard from the creatures were a series of snarls and squeaks. They hadn't heard the voices of a legion, screaming, shouting, hollering.

" _ _Slow down and you're dead!__ "

" _ _Get them! GET THEM!__ "

" _ _Die! Die! Die! Die!__ "

And their sadistic laughter, echoing through Flame's mind. These weren't simply wild pokemon protecting their home, these were the pokemon of a sadistic trainer, ready and willing to bring harm upon an unaware group of children. Unlike the rhyhorn, they were enjoying every moment of the chase.

Ice had said he'd chosen them all for some reason, they'd apparently shown 'potential'. A Hashimoto psychic and Sabrina's cousin, Professor Oak's grandson, Lt Surge's daughter, and... Leaf. The motive was still unclear to him. Did he want to watch them all get slowly picked off one by one for his own amusement? Like some sort of twisted game where escape was promised, but secretly impossible all along.

Were there other kids he'd taken before? How many others had run through this maze, lost and confused, forced to flee and fight their way through the days before finally succumbing to whatever fate had in store for them. And, if Flame and the others failed, how many more will follow? He felt sick just thinking of it. They had to get out of here, if somebody brought them in there had to be an exit somewhere. But even that thought couldn't spark the smallest glimmer of hope in him, Ice seemed so confident that it wouldn't be easy for them to escape. They were well and truly lost, stumbling blindly around every corner in hope that maybe they were getting closer to their destination.

He shifted slightly and Ignus softly whined. He quickly apologised and gently placed her on the floor beside him where it was slightly less likely he'd jostle her again. After a moment's though, he pulled off his jacket and folded it into a little nest for her.

" _ _Oh, you really didn't have to.__ " Ignus yawned, but she didn't protest as he lifted her and tucked her in, " _ _I'm supposed to be the one taking care of you.__ "

That statement coming from a tiny orange lizard on the verge of sleep couldn't help but be amusing. " _ _I know you will.__ " he said, stroking the smooth scales on top of her warm head. A sound that could have been a purr rumbled from her throat.

" _ _You chose me.__ " she said sleepily, " _ _And he told us all that we had to protect whoever chose us__."

Flame's eyes flew open. __He__? Who was 'he'?

" _ _Who told you that?__ " he demanded and the charmander looked up at him with tired confusion.

" _ _I don't know, the one who captured us. I never got a name.__ "

" _ _Ice? Was it a man with a mask? What did he look like? Did you see his face?__ " any previous tiredness was now gone, Flame was fully alert. Somebody knew they were in the maze, somebody who could be in league with Ice. And even better, it seemed like he actually __wanted__ them to succeed in this insane challenge!

Ignus shook her head slowly and yawned widely, " _ _No, no, it wasn't a man.__ " she murmured, blinking rapidly in an attempt to dispel lingering tiredness, " _ _It was a raticate.__ "

Flame stared down at her, " _ _A raticate?__ " one of Ice's? He'd never heard of a pokemon capturing another pokemon before. Of course, that was probably because trainers preferred to be there when they captured a pokemon. Nobody would become a trainer just to have their pokemon go out and fight all their battles for them.

" _ _Yep, it was a raticate.__ " Ignus sat up, looking considerably more awake now, " _ _Big, sharp teeth, browny orange in colour...__ "

" _ _That's what every raticate looks like!__ "

" _ _One of his ears was torn.__ " she said, her tail starting to wag a little, " _ _His left one, completely shredded! Are you going to do what I think you're going to do?__ "

" _ _If you're thinking that we're going to find that raticate, then you're absolutely right.__ " Flame told her. It looked like they were starting to uncover another possible ally. Their only issue was actually finding him, wherever he could be.

Or, of course, they could simply wait until Ice decided to send his raticate army after them again. Either way worked, but one way was slightly more pleasant.

Ignus hopped out of her nest and pressed against Flame's right side in a feeble attempt to push him down, " _ _But first, you need to sleep! You've been doing a lot of walking and you've stayed up way later than anybody else has! You won't want to be too tired when everybody else is up!__ "

" _ _But then who'll-__ "

" _ _I'll keep watch!__ " the small pokemon puffed out her chest in an attempt to look fierce, " _ _You can count on me to do this, I already slept!__ "

" _ _But you're the one who'll be doing the actual fighting-__ " Flame began.

" _ _Just let me do this! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaase?__ " her eyes grew round and she stopped pushing him, " _ _Let me protect you!__ "

Trying his best not to laugh, he finally gave in, " _ _Alright, fine. But wake me up if you get tired, ok?__ "

" _ _Right!__ " she bounded into the centre of the intersection and sat, alert as her head snapped back and forth in each of the four directions around them. Flame shook his head in amusement as he wondered how long it would take before she tired herself out as he curled up on the stone floor.

* * *

Dead.

Her family thought she was __dead__.

Mum, Dad, Root... Hell, even Holt their meowth probably thought so too. Her face had been plastered all over the news, her apparent blood that had been splattered across the rocks by Fuchsia City, the message spread far and wide 'this girl is dead, what a crying shame' as she curled up on the floor of a maze where nobody would ever find her. They were probably nowhere near where the authorities expected their dead bodies to be, Knowing Ice and his sadism, the blood was a false lead; set in place to lure away anybody who had any hope of finding them.

Leaf curled up tighter, pulling her Premier Ball-shaped hat over her eyes and tried to ignore the feeling of hunger clawing at her stomach. It didn't matter how long they wandered around aimlessly with forced hope and optimism. They weren't really going to find the exit, weren't they? How much longer could they travel without eating before they would be unable to walk? A day? Two? Three? She'd never been this long without food. Or water, for the matter. How long would it take for them and their pokemon to be too weak to fight back against an oncoming threat?

She'd never felt so small, huddled in a cold maze far away from home. If she did die here, would her family know? Would they ever find out that their little girl had survived just a little longer, only to have her life mercilessly snuffed out? Or will her body be hidden away, undiscovered as time slowly decayed it into nothingness? She shuddered at the thought.

But how long could Sparky pretend that everything will be ok as she pressed everybody forward? Sooner or later, it would begin to wear away until it had withered completely. How were they supposed to return to the 'real' world now that everybody thought they were dead?

A gentle touch to her shoulder jostled her out of her thoughts, making her jump. Flame quickly jerked away from her, looking a little guilty at having startled her. Leaf just tiredly ran a hand through her hair, wincing at all the knots it had already accumulated. Only a day in the maze and she was already looking like a mess.

Only a day of consciousness in the maze and she was already giving up.

She tried to push that thought away. If Flame, Rain and Sparky weren't going to complain, neither was she.

Though that's what she'd already promised herself earlier that day, before they'd seen the news report.

The others were sitting in a lose circle in the centre of their intersection camp, pokemon either by their sides on resting on their laps. Leaf looked around and spotted Kojo sitting just inside the path to her left, pretending he couldn't see her.

Earlier, she would have hurried over and held him to her chest, still bubbling over with the excitement of having her very own pokemon. Her very own, not one that she had to share with her brother that they'd argue over who was allowed to look after it for a month before caring for it would soon become a chore. No, Kojo was hers and hers alone, her personal pet that she didn't have to share with anybody.

But despite her feelings, a blind person could see that he wanted nothing more than to get rid of her. Her pokemon's coldness made her feel nothing more than she had to work even harder to win his respect and affection. Was there something she was doing wrong? The others seemed to have bonded instantly with their own pokemon.

Perhaps that was a sign that she was doomed to fail the challenge of the maze.

She left Kojo alone, hugging her arms as she trudged to where the others were sitting. At the moment, she didn't feel like chasing down her bulbasaur and showering him with affection, he would just have to wait until later.

Flame gave her a glance as she sat down beside him, but she didn't check to see if it was sympathetic or exasperated. Didn't the others care what was happening right now? Didn't the full force of what was going on finally hit them? They were helpless, their pokemon useless against Ice's raticates, they had no supplies and most of all, no clear route out.

Forget about their faked deaths, Ice may as well have killed them for real and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Sparky addressed them, her voice sounding oddly excited, "Flame and I have just been talking and we think we've figured out the first step to getting out of here."

Her claim made Leaf feel skeptical, to say the least. So far, their plan for escaping was 'keep walking until we find the end of the maze', so she couldn't say she had high hopes for their new idea. But all the same, she felt her heart flutter at the thought of escape. More than anything else, she wanted to get as far away from this place as soon as possible. Her hair was tangled, her clothes smelt and her long nails were already chipped and scratched from clawing at the floor in the room they'd found their pokemon in. She stole a quick look over at Kojo who was still pointedly ignoring her and sighed. Things really weren't working in her favour.

"Alright, so first things first." Sparky and Flame shared a look before she turned back to Rain and Leaf, "Flame can understand what pokemon are saying."

"What?" Leaf yelped, eyes widening in astonishment. She felt her face flush when she caught sight of the other's quizzical expressions.

"I take it that you __didn't__ know that." Sparky mused, looking over at Rain, "What about you, how did you know?"

Rain returned her gaze lazily, "I've known him for eleven years, how couldn't I?"

She shrugged, "Fair enough."

Leaf ducked her head. First she was the only one who's pokemon appeared to actively dislike and now she was the only one who didn't seem to know about Flame's apparently obvious power. What else about her alienated her from the others? She would have asked, but she knew her words would only be met by Rain saying something along the lines of 'you're rich and we're not'.

What was with them and pointing out she was rich, anyway?

Sparky continued, "So last night, the two of us were thinking: who obviously knows where the maze's exit is?" she paused, as if expecting an answer. When she got none, she gave one herself, "Ice. He put us here and he seems to know his way around."

"So what, is your plan to find him and ask him nicely how to get out of here?" Rain drawled, unimpressed.

"Our plan," Sparky said with a hint of smugness, "is to get the next best thing: one of his raticates to tell us how to get out. Flame can interrogate it, or maybe it could willingly work with us." before Rain could make another sarcastic remark, she went on, "But that's not all. Apparently, it was a raticate that caught our pokemon, and he seems to be rooting for us for some reason."

Leaf had to voice her thought, "But why should one of Ice's pokemon be on our side? Weren't they trying to kill us yesterday?"

Flame shrugged and Sparky spoke for him, "Your guess is as good as mine. But it looks like we've been given a choice here; we can either keep walking around until we find the exit or we can find that raticate and use Flame's ability to get information out of it. Next time we're attacked by a group of raticates, keep your eyes open for one with a ripped ear."

Their plan sounded no easier than 'blunder around until we find the exit' but Leaf had to admit, it did sound considerably more appealing. However, there was just one flaw she could see at that moment.

"How are we supposed to talk to him if he's trying to kill us?" she questioned.

Sparky and Flame glanced at each other, "We're not entirely sure if __this__ raticate wants to kill us." she said carefully, "According to Flame, he was encouraging our pokemon to succeed. But just in case he's a little more loyal to Ice, we've decided it might be best to fight and defeat him if he tries to get away."

The prospect seemed to excite Rain for some reason. All it did was make Leaf feel sick with fear. The four of them had been hopeless against just __three__ raticates, they could possibly hold their own against only one at the moment. But it was much more likely they'd be attacked by more than just a lone raticate and they were nowhere near strong enough.

As if he'd heard her thoughts, Rain got to his feet with a smug look on his face, "Then I think you'll all find this pretty cool." he told them, turning to his squirtle, "Quinn, use Water Gun!"

Quinn wasn't even looking at him, he was staring off absently at the ceiling and wagging his tail lightly. Rain nudged him with his foot and repeated the instruction again before he sprang into action. A stream of high-pressure water shot from his mouth, soaking the wall down the intersection where the path turned.

There was a brief pause, before Sparky finally said, "Nice."

There was a screech and the three of them whirled around to see a huge venomoth fluttering by one of the intersection's entrances, its wide purple wings scattering multicoloured dust in a shimmering rainbow. It would have been extremely beautiful if it wasn't holding a panicking and struggling Kojo in its talons.

Leaf was already on her feet, but the second it saw her it gave another shriek and madly flapped its wings, scattering a fresh cloud of dust as it took off down the path.

Blind and deaf to anything and everything else, Leaf gave chase.


	7. Part One: Chapter Seven - Venomoth

_Part One: Chapter Seven_

Leaf had already disappeared around the corner before Rain knew what was happening. Swearing, he scooped up Quinn in his arms and charged after her, Flame and Sparky close behind.

A day of running and hiking on an empty stomach was taking its toll on him and the others and he found his movements almost clumsy as he half ran, half stumbled through the maze. Quinn weighing him down sure wasn't helping him either, but there was no way he was going to leave his pokemon behind.

He could just see Leaf ahead, brown hair streaming out behind her. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of the venomoth's glittering wings or one of Kojo's flailing vines before they vanished behind another grey wall.

He had to force himself to keep up with the girl and fleeing pokemon, but he could soon feel himself slowing down.

They were getting farther...

And farther...

And farther...

Wait, what was he thinking? He knew exactly what to do!

"Quinn!" He shouted, holding his squirtle out in front of him, "Use Water-"

But before he could finish his command, a __whoosh__ ing noise sounded from behind him and a fireball was launched toward the fleeing bug pokemon, striking it in the middle of its back right before it could turn the next corner. With a final screech, it lost control and dropping Kojo before smashing into the wall before it.

He slowed down to a walking pace, doubling over in pain and tried and catch his breath. __No prizes for who had just thrown that fireball__. He thought to himself, casting a withering glare behind him at Flame and his pokemon. Of course, Rain had spent two hours teaching his own pokemon to use Water Gun and it took Flame what, two __seconds__ to teach his own pokemon Ember? Naturally.

When they were both younger, they found a wounded growlithe on the outskirts of Pallet Town. Their town was too small to have a pokemon centre and they knew neither Flame's mother nor Oak would approve of them bringing a beaten and bloody pokemon into the house, so they swore to care for it in secret. They hid it under Rain's house, fed it, treated its wounds as best two six year olds could, and Flame used his freaky powers to reassure it.

Everything had gone smoothly for a week before Rain's idiot sister found them and ratted them out to his grandfather.

 _ _"Rain, what were you thinking? You could have killed that poor pokemon! And not to mention all the germs it could have on it! This isn't the sort of thing I'd expected from my very own grandson!"__

But did Flame get the same tongue-lashing as Rain did? The two of them were in on it; they'd had an equal part to play in the entire incident.

No, Flame was __praised__. Of course, not in front of Rain. But he'd overheard his grandfather talking to the other boy, but that wasn't the worst part.

 _ _"Don't tell Rain I'm telling you this, but I'm proud of what you've done. Not every child would have been willing to take care of a wounded pokemon they'd found. I understand that you may have felt pressured into it by Lake - I know he can be sometimes - but you did the right thing in looking after it and putting up with him."__

What the hell had be meant 'pressured into it'? So not only did his grandfather think he was a rash idiot, but he had also thought he was a bully! And 'putting up with him'. Oh, real subtle, grandpa...

Still fuming over the memory, he forced his glare away from Flame and onto the floor in front of him. If Flame still wanted to play that stupid game of Look-Who's-So-Much-Better-Than-You even __here__ , that was fine with him. Though in his opinion, that was just plain petty. This had quite possibly been a matter of life and death and even __then__ , Flame couldn't help but steal Rain's spotlight.

At least he couldn't steal his grandfather's attention any more in the maze.

Leaf was cradling her pokemon in her arms, blinking back tears. The only reason Kojo wasn't desperately trying to wriggle out of her grasp was because he seemed to still be stunned from when the venomoth had dropped him. His eyes travelled over to the wild pokemon's still body where it lay slumped against the wall, dust from its soft wings had left an almost comical imprint where it had collided. Blinking dazedly, the pokemon rose to its feet, staggering a few steps before collapsing back onto the floor.

Flame cautiously approached it, Ignus looking ready to spit another mouthful of fire at it it it dared to move a muscle. Leaf hurriedly scurried a few paces away from it, stumbling to her feet and backing away as if the bug pokemon was a horrific monster.

"I guess this is a lesson to you," Rain said, narrowing his eyes as he looked down at the shaking girl, "keep an eye on your pokemon. They're not invincible, you know." he could hardly blame her though, she obviously didn't know the first thing about pokemon. She didn't know how to battle them, how to talk with them, heck, she didn't even know how to __hold__ them. Why in the world did Ice choose her to be left in the maze alongside him, Flame and Sparky? At least him and the others showed signs of being promising battlers, she cried throughout the fight with Ice, not issuing one command to her bulbasaur. The only positive Rain could see in her was that she could run fast, but that was a selfish skill that did nothing but scream 'self-preservation'.

Leaf wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, "I just left him alone for a few seconds, I thought he'd be fine..."

Rain actually rolled his eyes at her words. Naïve, unskilled, inexperienced, painfully dependent... Leaf Rosenstern was completely and utterly hopeless.

"Just keep your pokemon close, and then make sure you keep close to one of __us__." he told her, "Because as far as I've seen so far, you'd be dead on your own." Sure the truth hurt, but it was the truth nonetheless. If Rain was going to tell somebody that they were useless, he wasn't going to waste time and effort breaking it to them in a nice, slow manner. If she was useless, she was useless, there was no reason for him to beat around the bush.

Leaf's pretty little mouth opened, though she was saved from having to say anything by Sparky, "Big words coming from you, what have __you__ done for us since we came here?"

Rain folded his arms across his chest, if the girls wanted to start a competition seeing who could land the most stinging insult, so be it. "More than she has. If you don't remember, I was actually battling Ice instead of screaming and crying."

"I've never battled, ok?" Leaf said, her voice wobbling as she spoke, "I'm sorry if I'm not as good a trainer as you expect me to be."

Right, right, sure she was. Rain knew the girl was anything __but__ sorry. People like her were everywhere; they'd apologise, indulge in a little bit of self-depreciation to make herself look more humble. But she didn't mean a word of it. This didn't mean she'd magically pick herself up from her feet, all this conversation would do was get Rain off her back for a little while. She'd still look to them for her to lean on as soon as the next bump in the road came along. It was just the kind of person she was, her entire upbringing conditioned her to be like this, something that even the maze wouldn't be able to undo. Dependency like that was ingrained just too deeply to be washed away.

"I've never had a serious battle like that, either." Rain told her cooly, "But you didn't see me falling over and crying."

Leaf stood straight up, Kojo tucked under her in arm in a position that was obviously painful for the bulbasaur as it struggled in her grasp. Either she was stupid or she didn't care, but she didn't appear to notice this at all, her sparkling emerald eyes were fixed on Rain.

"I'm trying!" her voice rose until it was almost a shriek, "I __know__ I'm out of my depth here and I know I can't rely on you three all this time! I'm trying, ok? I'm not as strong as the rest of you are, so I do depend on you!' here she went again, with the oh-so-noble self-deprecation, "But I promise I'm trying to do better than that! Give me a chance!"

"I'll give you a chance when I see you pulling your weight." Rain told her. Part of him pondered the other ways he could counter her speech. He could do what she was doing and pour out all __his__ weaknesses. Like how she was pointing her finger at him and labelling him as the cruel, unprovoked bully; he could point the finger over Flame and describe to her how the mute had been a royal thorn in his side for half his childhood. He could pull the good old 'Freudian excuse' and, in a fit of fake tears, explain that it was because his grandfather - his guardian - never gave him enough attention as a kid. Maybe he could sigh and look tired, lie and tell her that the stress of Ice bearing over them was making him crack. Or he could break through Leaf with a piercing question that she had no hopes of responding to. A shameful part of him enjoyed the sadistic pleasure he was getting out of watching this spoilt girl flail pathetically.

Sparky rested her hand on Leaf's shoulder, "It's ok, breathe." she told the hysterical girl in a soothing voice, turning her glare on Rain. Right, so now __he__ was the bad guy. Had she already forgotten about their masked kidnapper who was the reason behind all of this in the first place? If it wasn't for Ice, they wouldn't have been forced to put up with each other like this.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), Rain was saved from having to hear whatever the blonde was about to say when all four of them where knocked off their feet. Rain found himself skidding painfully across the rough floor before coming to a sudden halt as he slammed into the wall, Leaf knocking into him before he could get back up.

Dazed, he pushed himself to his knees. The venomoth was back on its feet, purple wings outstretched. Rain guessed that what had just hit them was a Whirlwind attack, and judging by the way its wings were glowing faintly in the artificial lighting, it was just getting ready to use...

Rain grabbed Quinn and shoved Leaf back down to the ground as the venomoth unleashed its Razor Wind attack, leaving deep gashes in the stone. He heard Leaf swear in a very unladylike manner as she clambered to her feet. She looked ready to run, but then she caught Rain's eye and her expression hardened.

"Kojo, attack!" she commanded, pointing a trembling finger at the bug pokemon. She blinked in surprise when she realised she couldn't see her pokemon anywhere. The two of them glanced around before catching sight of him cowering behind Flame.

Rain snorted, "Looks like you're not trying hard enough." he told her bluntly, "Quinn, use Water Gun!"

Thankfully, __his__ pokemon obeyed him without hesitation. A jet of water shot from his mouth, drenching the venomoth's face and flinging it backwards.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Captain sparking with electricity before unleashing a Thundershock at the large bug. A ball of flames followed suit from Ignus's mouth, but the venomoth shook it off. Clearly, the first Ember attack had taken it by surprise. But now it wasn't distracted by its previous attempts to lose them and was ready to take a hit.

"Water Gun!" he commanded again, but the venomoth was quicker than he thought. It was already back on its feet and well out of the way before Quinn's attack could hit it. With a sweep of its scaly wings, a fine yellow powder was scattered across the path, stinging Rain's nose when he inhaled.

 _ _Stun Spore.__

The effects were instantaneous, Quinn tripping over himself almost as soon as the paralysing powder hit him. Ignus tried to press forward, but her movements were far more sluggish than before. Captain gave an indignant cry and fired another Thundershock at the venomoth. The wild pokemon chittered angrily and knocked the pikachu away with the back of one of its wings.

Now, Rain was extremely glad he'd managed to teach Quinn a long-range attack. Unfortunately, the Water Guns that his squirtle was spewing out in rapid succession - although each hit its mark - seemed to be doing hardly any damage. The only attacks that seemed to be doing anything were Ignus's Embers, but their effect was dampened from the fact that the venomoth had been soaked through by Quinn's attacks.

Leaf was screaming for Kojo to attack. Just 'attack'. She probably didn't know what kind of attacks her pokemon would know but at that moment, Rain was a little too preoccupied with making sure his own pokemon didn't get killed to give her any life advice.

The venomoth's scales were glinting again as it prepared to launch another Razor Wind attack. Rain braced himself to snatch Quinn out of the way again when he heard Leaf scream:

"Kojo, Vine Whip!"

Her pokemon didn't hesitate. Although the Stun Spores had slowed it down considerably, the venomoth had been rendered immobile as it was charging its next attack and didn't have time to move before Kojo had wrapped his vines around the bug pokemon and slammed it into the floor.

Rain couldn't help but blink in surprise, "How did you know he could learn that?" he questioned.

Leaf just shrugged, looking a little embarrassed, "It was the only Grass-type move that I know." she mumbled, looking down at her feet.

Miraculously, the move had somehow managed to distract the venomoth long enough for Ignus and Captain to land a few more hits on it. Finally, Rain could see that the effects of the constant barrage of attacks was starting to weaken the giant bug.

Quinn spat out another Water Gun, striking the venomoth in the side of its head but also extinguishing Ignus's next Ember attack in the process. Rain ignored the glare Flame shot at him. Maybe if they kept chipping away at the wild pokemon, they could eventually win this...

His hopes were washed away as soon as that thought crossed his mind. The venomoth let loose another Whirlwind attack, sending their pokemon tumbling in all directions before scattering another dosage of stun spore with a flap of its wings.

Rain cursed and pulled the collar of his shirt over his nose. Despite the fact that Stun Spore's effect on humans wasn't as potent as it was on pokemon, he wasn't overly fond of breathing the stuff in.

"The wings!" Sparky gagged as she inhaled a mouthful of spores, "It- __ack__!" she doubled over and coughed into her hand, but Rain understood where she was coming from.

Leaf, miraculously, seemed to understand too. "Kojo, Vine Whip again! Aim for the wings!"

A pair of green vines wrapped tightly around their attacker, this time immobilising the pokemon rather than tossing it into the ground. Unable to use its wings to fight, the venomoth instantly panicked and squirmed in vain to get free. The remaining trainers didn't even need to issue a command to their pokemon, the three starters took great pleasure in launching fire, water and electricity at their now helpless opponent.

There was a loud hissing and crackling sound, as hot water was met with Captain's Thundershock and the steam cleared to reveal the now fainted venomoth.

Kojo's vines retracted and Leaf all but squealed in victory, flashing Rain a smug look. Lake just rolled his eyes as Quinn limped back to him. They didn't have much to celebrate, now their pokemon had been worn down. If another wild pokemon attacked them right now, they'd be done for.

On top of that, something was nagging him though. Something about that venomoth's attacks...

"Razor Wind and Whirlwind aren't moves that a wild venomoth can learn." he said aloud, drawing everybody's attention away from their tired pokemon. Living with a pokemon professor had made Rain pick up a few things over the years. Of course, he wasn't a complete nerd, but there were a few seemingly useless facts that he'd managed to learn, "Moves like that can only be taught to them with a Technical Machine."

Sparky immediately understood, "So that venomoth wasn't wild," she said, "and that probably means means..."

"It was another one of Ice's pokemon." The amount of venom in Leaf's voice surprised Rain as she went on, "He's not going to leave us alone, is he?"

Rain eyed the fainted venomoth, a part of him wondering whether or not is was just pretending to be beaten and waiting for them to let their guards down long enough. He wouldn't put it past Ice to try and play dirty like that.

"We should keep moving." Sparky said, glancing around as if she expected another one of Ice's pokemon to appear at any second, "Maybe we'll find healing supplies up ahead." even she didn't sound like she believed herself with her final statement, but Rain was just as happy as anybody else to get as far away from Ice's venomoth as possible.

Rain picked Quinn up, the squirtle was still suffering from the effects of Stun Spore and Rain could tell that he wouldn't be able to keep up with them on foot. Without a word, the four of them carrying their pokemon tentatively made their way around the motionless venomoth as they carried on their journey into the unknown.


	8. Part One: Chapter Eight - Hunger

_Part One: Chapter Eight_

No more of Ice's pokemon bothered them as they continued their trek through the maze, but none had to. A combination of two days of walking, the previous battle with Ice's venomoth and the fact that none of them had eaten in days was wearing them thin. Their breaks were getting longer and more frequent and even though Sparky was certain that the paralysis from Stun Spore had worn off, she and the others found themselves having to carry their exhausted pokemon.

She really couldn't find it in herself to blame them. They were much smaller than the kids and had just fought an opponent much stronger than them, they deserved a rest. She raised one hand to scratch Captain behind her long ears and the pikachu on her shoulder made a content yet tired sound.

If Ice's plan was to kill them with exhaustion, it was working. Sparky's legs felt like they were made of lead despite the fact that she'd always been a great hiker. Evidently, even a skill like that wouldn't be able to keep her strong forever.

She slowed down to wait for the others, turning around to face the stragglers. Flame and Rain were a few paces behind her. Despite their obvious tiredness, the two of them had had a silent competition in which it appeared that whoever fell behind was subject to horrific shame. All Sparky could say to that was 'at least it encouraged the two of them to keep up'. Leaf, despite being the fastest runner, was lagging behind, Kojo plodding along behind her. The girl had insisted on carrying him even when the others had let their pokemon walk, ignoring his squirming and Flame trying to explain via notepad that her pokemon didn't want to be carried. Now, she'd finally realised what a dead weight he was being and gave in, letting him walk with the rest of them. Sparky wasn't entirely sure what the bulbasaur thought of his trainer, but she just hoped whatever dislike he harboured wasn't too extreme that it would sabotage their survival.

Sparky almost sighed as she looked at Rain and Flame exchanging glares as they power walked toward her. It looked like more than just Kojo would have to overcome their dislike for another member of their team.

"We're taking another break." she told them, pressing her back against the cool wall and sliding down it. The others didn't complain as they sat down on the stone. Sparky ran a hand through her sweaty hair and wondered – not for the first time – if they were walking around in circles. She had no way of knowing for sure, and all the walls looked the same. Come to think of it, there were no landmarks any of them could use to identify parts of the maze. There were only the rooms that they'd woken up in and that other room they'd found their pokemon, but they hadn't come across another room in what felt like forever.

Captain clambered down from her shoulders and sat beside Sparky with her back against the wall, mimicking her trainer's current pose.

So much for their plan to find that raticate. Occasionally, Sparky could swear that she had heard the soft __pitter patter__ of a rodent's footsteps behind a wall they were passing by, but she had no clue whether or not that was reality or some kind of dehydration-induced hallucination.

Perhaps they had to fight for their right to eat or drink and Ice would soon send in another pokemon for them to fend off. She almost sighed at the thought. In the past two days, they'd run from a pack of hostile raticate, faced Ice himself head-on, had to watch a news report on their supposed murders and fought off a high-level venomoth. And now they'd been hiking for hours; tired, hungry and thirsty. What more did that psycho expect from them?

In their silence, eight pairs of eyes scanned the path before and behind them in case a new threat was ready to take advantage of them in their weakened states. Now, even Sparky was having her doubts on whether or not they'd be able to fight back.

And what would happen if they __were__ beaten? Would Ice take mercy and heal them, or would their deaths on the television become a reality? As much as she hated to think about it, such thoughts were becoming steadily more common as the hours dragged by. Despite being the daughter of a war veteran, she usually wasn't the kind of person to think about death at all. But at a time like this when such an event looked like an almost certain possibility, it wasn't something that could be helped.

She glanced around at the others, "You guys ready to keep moving?" she asked them. In response, she got a few groans before the other three and their pokemon dragged themselves to their feet.

 _ _I'll take that as a 'yes'.__ She thought to herself, nudging Captain to her paws. Maybe if they just kept walking and didn't give in, they'd turn a corner and find a pile of food just waiting for them.

Yeah right, as if that would ever happen.

Minutes dragged by into what felt like hours. None of them had a way of telling whether it really was that long or if it was just their exhausted brains miscalculating. But eventually after taking a turn at a junction, Sparky stopped to see that Captain was no longer with them.

She froze in panic, for a moment thinking that her pikachu must have collapsed on a path behind them and she hadn't noticed. But turning around revealed that Captain had merely stopped at the intersection, sniffing at the air.

She called to the others to stop and they did, Rain grumbling under his breath about 'efficiency' but fortunately not protesting loud enough to be a nuisance. The seven of them waited as patiently as possible for Captain to catch up, shifting from one tired leg to another.

Captain's small nose twitched as she sniffed the air, standing on her toes as her large black eyes flickered to and fro between the different paths that the junction split into before hurrying down the path to her left.

"Captain-!" Sparky began to call her back but then stopped. Her pikachu must have smelt something, and if she was willingly following the scent, that meant that it had to be something that they needed, like...

Without another word, Sparky followed, the others trailing after her. At last, after all this time it looked like they were finally allowed to be fed.

Captain now led the way. Right, right, left, left. Occasionally, she stopped to make sure the trainers and other pokemon were still following before she took off again. Left, right, right, left, straight.

She came to a stop by a wall and scratched at it with her front paws. Sparky crouched down to see that engraved in the stone was a rectangle no bigger than her head. If she looked carefully, she could make out a sentence etched inside the shape.

 _ _'What level does ekans evolve at?'__

"What level does- __What__?" She heard Leaf exclaim from behind her, "What does that have to do with anything? Do you know what that has to do with anything?"

Sparky watched as Captain pawed at the rectangle, "I'm guessing that if we answer the question right, we get food?" She tried. It made sense. What else could happen? As soon as she thought that, a million possibilities swarmed through her head, ranging from a door out of the maze to an angry swarm of beedrills.

She was not enjoying her new pessimistic outlook on life.

"Any of you know when ekans evolves?" She asked, turning to look at Flame, Leaf and Rain, "Because I have no idea." Wild ekans lived around her hometown of Vermillion City, but she'd never bothered to learn much about them. Evidently, that was coming back to bite her now. But to be fair, how was she supposed to know that kind of knowledge would come in handy in the future?

Leaf frowned, "I watched a documentary about snake pokemon once," she said, "they talked about ekans and its evolution at one point but..." She hesitated, "No, I have no idea, sorry."

They all turned to Rain who looked at them as if they'd gone insane.

"What, you think that just because my grandfather's a researcher, I should be some kind of nerd?" He demanded, folding his arms, "How should I know when a dumb ekans evolves?"

Sparky just sighed, "Well, it looks like we've got no other choice." she said, looking back at the rectangle, "Thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight, twenty seven..."

Behind her, she heard Rain mutter "I can't believe this is happening..." and even Leaf murmur in agreement.

"... Twenty three, twenty two-"

There was a click and the shape swung to one side to reveal a hole cut into the wall. Without pausing to think, Sparky reached inside and pulled out a packet of nacho cheese flavoured corn chips.

She stared blankly at the packet in her hand for a moment before dropping it to the ground and reaching back inside the compartment in the wall to pull out five more packets as well as four bottles of ice tea until it was empty.

Leaf was staring at their prizes in shock, "Does Ice even know what human beings eat?" she wondered aloud, "I mean, we can't live off this!"

"Looks like we're going to have to get used to it." Rain told her bluntly, tearing open a packet of chips and handing it over to their pokemon before opening one for himself.

Corn chips and ice tea. Those weren't exactly what Sparky had been expecting them to receive, but then she wasn't going to complain. She watched as the door to the compartment swung shut and for once, she felt as if she was starting to gain some sort of understanding on how the maze worked. They just had to keep their eyes open for another one of those rectangles and answer whatever it asked of them.

It was far better than having to fight for a meal, anyway.

"This really isn't healthy." Leaf commented, though she begrudgingly held out a handful of chips to Kojo. The bulbasaur made a big show out of turning his back on her and helping himself to the packet Quinn and Ignus were sharing.

"We've been starved for two days and all you can worry about is whether or not what we get is healthy?" Rain questioned, "You really are-"

"Spoilt? Rich? A brat? I know, I get it." Leaf cut him off with a sigh, reaching over Flame to grab one of the ice tea bottles.

Sparky shot Rain a warning look. He did have a point, they couldn't afford to be picky here; especially when their survival depended heavily on Ice and how he had set the maze to be. On the other hand, Leaf wasn't the only one of them who needed to change. If Rain wanted to get on at all with the others, he'd better stop acting like a condescending prat.

At least Flame kept to himself, though that was more due to his inability to clearly and easily communicate. He had been writing notes less and less as they walked, possibly to save pages and ink. Sparky couldn't help but wonder what the boy was thinking and what he could be discussing with their pokemon. Surely, he had to have spoken with them by now. Part of her wanted to ask if an what he could have been talking to Captain about, but something held her back. Surely, if he was talking to her pokemon, he would have told her.

All the same, a part of her didn't like the idea of him silently conversing with Captain. It was like he already shared a special link with each and every one of their pokemon the moment he'd laid eyes on them. An irrational part of Sparky had begun to fear him growing closer to Captain than she could, but she'd hastily pushed the thought away whenever it had emerged. Flame seemed like a kind, reasonable person and not at all the kind that would purposely drive a wedge between a trainer and her pokemon. But all the same, that fear had lurked in the back of her mind ever since she'd heard of his ability.

Trying to get her mind off that, she eyed the carved rectangle that hid the compartment. "Where exactly do you think this place is?" She wondered aloud.

"You think we haven't thought about that?" Rain asked, though he sounded more tired than sarcastic, "We're in a big maze. A big, indoor maze. Do any of you know where one of those are lying about in Kanto?"

"Maybe we're not in Kanto anymore." Leaf suggested, her voice sounding a little timid, "I mean, you're right. If there was a building with giant maze in it in our region, everybody would definitely know. Maybe we're in Hoenn, or Unova."

Sparky didn't like that possibility at all. "Don't you think this place is a little too big to be a building?" she questioned, "We've been walking for hours. Maybe it's designed so that we go around in circles, though."

"Or," Rain added, "we could be underground. Think about it, nobody would notice and it can be as big as the builders want it to be."

The four of them looked up at the ceiling, as if imagining hundreds of people and pokemon going about their everyday lives above their heads with no idea what was happening beneath them. Sparky felt her throat tighten at the thought of being buried alive. She just hoped that these walls were strong enough to support the metres of rock and earth that were quite possibly weighing down on top of them.

"How do you think he's doing this?" Leaf broke the silence, her green eyes wide.

"Who's doing what?" Sparky asked.

"How's Ice managing all this?" She looked around at them before twisting to look behind her at the path, as if afraid he might appear just by mentioning his name, "Do you think he built all of this by himself or could he have found it? Because we have electricity, which I don't think we'd be getting if this place was abandoned..." She trailed off for a moment, "And, you know, this whole place is pretty clean. It doesn't look old at all. And the only pokemon we've seen so far were most likely his, if this place had been abandoned, it would be filled with wild pokemon..."

She coughed awkwardly and sat up straight, eyes downcast and looking a little embarrassed. Her words were met with a thoughtful silence as her listeners took in what she had said.

As Sparky took another look around them, she couldn't help but realise that the other girl was right. She hadn't thought about it before, but the electricity had to be coming from somewhere. And the entire place __did__ look much too clean for it to have been some abandoned facility. There was no way she could imagine Ice being bothered to clean the entire establishment himself, yet the stonework looked almost sterile. On top of that, it was much too big to have been built without the media finding out about it, or at least being featured on a map of Kanto.

Where __were__ they?

Maybe they weren't even in Kanto at all. But then, why bother capturing them and four native Kanto pokemon when you could just kidnap kids and pokemon from whatever region they may be in right now? The logic of the situation made Sparky's head spin as she downed half of one of the ice tea bottles.

Nothing made sense to her. Not the who, what, why or how. All that she knew was that they had to get out of here, and as soon as possible. She just hoped that she wouldn't have to see anymore of that man anytime soon.

She really shouldn't have tempted fate there. Half an hour after they'd finished resting and continued their monotonous trek, they stumbled across a room where they found him waiting.


	9. Part One: Chapter Nine - Insight

_Part One: Chapter Nine_

Flame tried to shake off his lingering drowsiness as he and Ignus trailed behind the group, casting an occasional glance behind them to ensure they weren't being followed. The action had become an instinct over the last few days that they'd spent wandering and occasionally fighting.

He was surprised how quickly they'd adapted to life in the maze. Now that they knew where to look, finding food wasn't as much of a challenge as it was previously and they soon realised that those rectangular carvings weren't as uncommon as they'd previously thought. They usually came across two to three of them each day, each with a new pokemon-related question that they needed to answer for the door to open.

He wiped sleep from his eyes with the palm of his hands. With no way of knowing night from day, they tended to sleep and travel whenever they felt tired or rested enough. Some 'days' only lasted a few hours while others dragged on for as long as they could walk. Ice still hadn't stopped sending pokemon after them, but fortunately their most recent fights were against lower-level pokemon that never resulted in any serious damage against their own teams. Every now and again, they even found potions and ethers inside one of the rectangle compartments that they gratefully used to heal their pokemon with.

Flame wasn't sure if it was just him, but it felt like the maze was going easy on them all of a sudden. The first few days had been a terrifying challenge, but now their biggest issue was making sure they didn't get attacked while they slept. Either they had gotten stronger or something big was about to happen.

Two sleeps later, he appeared again.

They'd just woken up and finished off what was left of the last meal they'd found (bottled water and pizza) as Leaf complained under hear breath about how dirty she was getting.

"We haven't had a bath in days!" She muttered, looking down at her grubby hands as she walked, "We're covered in sweat, I can almost __feel__ all the grease that must be in my hair and - oh gross, I must smell so bad."

Kojo snorted, ' _ _Deal with it. I've never had a bath before in my life. Ungrateful trainer...__ '

Rain was luckily too far ahead to hear Leaf's comments about their personal hygiene and Flame was relieved he didn't have to hear his mocking voice taunting the girl. Despite her complaints about almost everything (that were fortunately becoming less frequent) and weak attempts to battle, Flame couldn't help but feel sorry for her. He had no idea what it must be like to transition from an easy life to... Well, whatever they had right now.

Up ahead, Sparky and Rain had stopped to wait for them. They picked up the pace to catch up and Flame soon noticed that they'd stopped by a doorway cut into the stone walls.

"It looks like another room." Sparky remarked and Flame poked his head in. It was almost identical to the one he had woken up in. Were they going around in circles? It had the same dull grey walls and floor; and the ceiling lights still flickered every now and again. But it was considerably bigger than that first room, and more rectangular in shape. They stepped in, pokemon trailing after them as they observed the new area.

And then a voice sounded nearby them.

"I was wondering when you might turn up."

Flame jumped and whirled around. He could have sworn Ice hadn't been there before, but now he was staring right at them, leaning casually against the wall as if he they were some old friends that he'd just bumped into on the street.

"Who's up for a pop quiz?" His voice sounded a lot more cheerful and energetic since the last time Flame had heard it. His red eyes narrowed as he cautiously observed the masked man who stood with his hands resting casually in the pockets of his jacket. There was no way he'd come unarmed, he was definitely holding on to a Poké Ball.

His words seemed to have struck great confusion within the others. "Pop quiz?" Rain echoed, glancing over at the others as if to make sure he wasn't hearing things.

"Yeah, a pop quiz." Ice clapped his hands and eight images appeared on the wall behind him, each depicting another person. Flame recognised him immediately, they were Kanto's Gym Leaders, "You guys know who these people are, right?"

The eight of them stared at him blankly. Ignus cast a confused look up at Flame. ' _ _Why isn't he attacking?'__ She questioned, ' _ _I don't like this, can you tell him to fight us instead? He's scary when he tries to act nice.__ '

' _ _Let's just see what he wants.__ ' Flame told her, looking at each of the pictures in turn. His gaze lingered for a while on Sabrina. It had been almost a year since he'd last visited her. How was she reacting to his 'death'? Just thinking about the fact the outside world thought he had passed on made him shiver. It really was an unpleasant thought.

Sparky was the one who answered Ice's question, "Those are the Gym Leaders." She said stiffly, her body tensed up as if she was ready to bolt at any second. Captain was beside her, red cheek pouches crackling with charged electricity.

Ice sounded almost ridiculously impressed with her response. "You're right! These," he waved a gloved hand at the projections, "are the eight Kanto Gym Leaders, elected by the people of Kanto themselves. Who's this woman?" he pointed at Erika.

This time, he was met by silence and stunned stares.

' _ _What's with this guy?__ ' Flame heard Quinn pipe up, ' _ _Why doesn't he know who she is? Who is she, anyway?__ '

"Come on guys, I need you to answer this." He hadn't expect Ice to sound so whiny saying it, "Come on, who is she?"

Just hours ago, Ice had been their scourge, a dark cloud looming over their heads. Flame's worst fear during his time here was - next to starving to death - having to face this man again. And now he was standing right in front of them and trying to quiz them on the Gym Leaders. The situation suddenly made him so much less intimidating.

Ice huffed out a sigh, closed his eyes and tipped his head back in frustration.

"Nat, snap Flame's neck."

At once, something cold wrapped around Flame's throat and he froze. Leaf shrieked and the others scattered away from him with wide and horrified eyes.

' _ _I heard that you can understand what we're saying.__ ' A feminine voice rasped by his ear, ' _ _It's a pity to make something so valuable go to waste.__ ' The creature's grip tightened around him. He couldn't breathe. His fingers prised at the gooey thing that held him but it was no use. The pressure around his neck didn't disappear.

"Erika!" The rest of the kids shouted in unison.

'Nat's' slimy grip loosened slightly. Flame still didn't dare breathe lest she took it as a sign of resistance. Ignus was crouched a metre in front of him, tail lashing as if she were preparing to launch an attack.

' _ _Ignus, go to the others.__ ' He told her. The last thing he wanted was for the charmander to get hurt, too. She shook her head, blue eyes defiant.

' _ _You heard your trainer.__ ' Nat's gravelly voice rumbled.

Ice watched the scene with what looked like twisted amusement in his eyes. He knew exactly what was happening between Flame and his pokemon. Flame swallowed thickly and met Ignus's gaze.

' _ _Go to the others.__ ' He repeated stubbornly. This was the path of least resistance and he was taking it. It may have not been the nicest path, but it had always been less trouble for him to just do what he was told.

Rain was talking, "Erika, Gym Leader of Celadon City. Her specialty is grass types, trainers usually challenge her fourth if they're taking the classic training route..." he trailed off and shot Flame a nervous look, "Um, her Gym has only female trainers... Ah... She likes flowers?" Any other time, Flame would have been stunned to find Rain showing actual worry for him. However, he had more pressing things to worry about at that moment.

' _ _Ignus.__ ' Flame said one last time, trying his hardest to make his 'voice' as stern as possible. It was agonisingly difficult when it was a challenge to breathe.

He almost sighed in relief when his pokemon finally backed away and hurried over to where Sparky was standing, casting a final glare at Nat and Ice in turn.

"Good, good." Ice said, nodding in approval. Throughout the entire ordeal, his cheerful aura hadn't disappeared at all. After his threat to Flame, it had suddenly become chilling rather than laughable. Now he was as they'd always thought of him as: haunting, imposing and as cold as his namesake. "Nat, you can let him go now."

The pressure was lifted from around his neck and Flame stumbled back, gasping. A muk slid into view in the corner of his eye and lingered nearby him.

Without changing his oddly enthusiastic tone, he surveyed his audience, "Anything else you can tell me about Erika?"

It was a few seconds before Leaf timidly spoke up, "She has that department store."

That response seemed good enough for him, "Yes! She 'has that department store'! She's also the main supplier for most of the Poké Marts across the region as her family are the people who import Poké Balls from Kalos. Fantastic, I knew it wasn't a mistake bringing you here!"

Flame exchanged a look with Rain from across the room. What exactly was going on here? He looked back at Ice who stood authoritative, powerful and quite possibly mad. Just looking at him make Flame's throat feel dry; this man could and would break his neck if he wanted to. Until that very moment, Flame had never felt as if his life was truly at risk. There'd always been some kind of hope that maybe Ice wasn't so bad, maybe this was all just some kind of show he was putting on in order to make the kids obey him and there was no way he'd truly bring them direct harm.

He couldn't recall him ever being so wrong.

He drew in a deep breath. __You're going to be alright.__ He told himself. __Just do what he says and you'll be fine.__

"What about her? Who's this?" Ice walked over to the projection and tapped on the second image.

"Misty, Cerulean Gym Leader, she trains water types-" Sparky began.

"And what does she do for the region?"

Flame tried to shuffle toward the others but a withering look from Nat made him stop in his tracks. Evidently, she was still happy to break his neck if need be. Ignus stared at him, eyes swimming with worry but didn't say anything. Flame was almost glad, it looked like the muk would take any opportunity to start strangling him again.

Rain seemed to sense that too, as for the first time in years he actually looked concerned for Flame's wellbeing. Without taking his eyes off him, he answered Ice's question. "Bikes. She exports bikes, doesn't she?"

"Good! Looks like you inherited some of your grandfather's smarts after all!" Rain seemed to bristle slightly at Ice's comment but he said nothing more, "Now, how about this man? Tell me about him."

Sparky answered immediately, "Koga, Gym Leader of Fuchsia City. He's responsible for running and maintaining the Safari Zone in his city." Straight to the point. Or more specifically, what the Gym Leader did outside of their duties in their Gym. That seemed to be what Ice was after as he nodded his head approvingly.

"Good, good. And what about __this__ man?"

Flame looked over at the image the man was indicating to and almost automatically filled in what he needed to in his head. Ice was the one in control and - just like in pokemon battling - he was the one that you had to listen to or face the consequences.

 _ _Giovanni, Viridian City Gym Leader, trainer of ground types and known for being the most powerful and respected. Most famous for his formation and leading of Team Rocket - who are responsible for national security and law enforcement.__

* * *

Rain recited what he knew, making sure to only include the information that Ice seemed to want to hear. Name, location of Gym and their specialty in regards to serving the region. The entire time, he was unable to look away from Flame. Just a few minutes ago, Ice was ready to murder him and - judging by the fact that his muk was still lingering nearby - he appeared to be more than ready to deal out more threats if he wanted to.

As far as he could see it, if they did what Ice wanted, he wouldn't hurt them. All they needed to do was obey his every word and they'd be as safe as... Well, as safe as they'd ever be. Which of course wasn't saying much.

It was just too bad that Rain despised people like Ice. People who demanded respect without earning it and who walked all over you if you failed to do as they commanded. They were everywhere: bullies, teachers, grandparents. What gave them the right?

But in this instance, the consequences were considerably more severe than if he were back at school disobeying his teacher. In the maze, defiance may as well be a death wish. So he folded his arms, grit his teeth together and fixed Ice with his most withering glare. He could see the man's frost coloured eyes twitch into a smirk that was covered by his mask.

"And this is common knowledge?" Ice questioned. Rain hated his eyes most of all. Those calculating blue eyes that could see into your soul. If only that mask of his covered his eyes rather than his mouth.

With a scowl, Rain nodded. He caught a glimpse of the girls doing the same.

"Law enforcement, hey?" Ice chuckled coldly, "Is that what they're telling you?" Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. "That was a question." Nat slid a little closer to Flame.

"Yes." Rain managed to force out. What did Ice want? All that he was asking them was common knowledge, if he wanted to test them in some way he wasn't doing a very good job at it.

A pause dragged by and Rain felt his breath catch in his throat. What now? It didn't look like I was going to ask them anything else. Would he challenge them to another battle next? He may have wanted nothing more than to kick that man into the dust, but even he knew that their pokemon would be insanely weaker than Ice's. He just hoped this time around, they'd be shown a little mercy. His eyes widened when he saw Ice retrieve a Poké Ball from his pocket. He __was__ challenging them again!

Without saying anything more, Ice returned Nat and brushed passed them as he wandered out the doorway. Rain darted after him but he'd vanished as soon as he'd left the room.

Sparky's voice broke the silence.

"What."

Well, that summed up what everyone was thinking perfectly. All that had happened was Ice appeared, quizzed them about some of the Gym Leaders and threatened them a little. Well, the latter he understood as it was a way of maintaining control over them through fear. But anything else that had just taken place didn't add up at all in Rain's mind.

Maybe it was a code. Some kind of code that might help them get out of the maze. Something to do with the Gym Leaders. It sounded unlikely to him, but he couldn't think up any other explanation. But then, noting Ice ever did or said seemed to make much sense. Why should he start now?

But there had to be something important about this gathering. Was it just him, or did Ice look strangely satisfied when it was clear they knew about Giovanni and Team Rocket? That made no sense; everybody knew about it. The Viridian City Gym Leader had been running the privately-owned law enforcement company for almost over two decades. Surely Ice must have known that?

Leaf approached Flame cautiously, "Are you alright?" She asked him. He nodded as he wiped purple slime that no doubt had come from Nat off the front his clothes, though he still looked pretty shaken up.

"Oh, wait!" the four of them almost jumped out of their skins as Ice appeared in the doorway. The man payed no heed to their snarling pokemon as he held up a handful of what looked like CDs. Rain recognised them as TMs. "I almost forgot, you guys can have these!"

"We're not touching anything you're giving us." Rain snarled, feeling cruelly satisfied when Ice even looked taken aback by his comment.

"... Alright." He said, sounding strangely hurt, "I'll just..." He crouched down and placed the TMs on the floor, "You can... Use them... I mean, if you want..." Once more, he ducked out of sight in what almost looked like embarrassment.

That guy just kept getting weirder and weirder. Was he trying to make them like him or fear him? Rain had no clue. He cast a glance down at the TMs, torn between eagerly seeing which ones could benefit his pokemon or spitting on them. ' _ _We're not touching anything you're giving us.__ ' He'd said. But since they'd set foot inside the maze, that's all they'd been doing. With a sigh, he stooped down to pick them up. There were four in total, with the names of the moves scribbled onto them in black marker.

 _ _Fire Blast__

 _ _Mega Drain__

 _ _Skull Bash__

 _ _Mega Punch__

 _ _Wow.__ Rain thought to himself as he read the labels _ _, Looks like we can do some serious damage with these!__ Of course, he was all too happy to issue some 'serious damage' upon Ice and his cronies. Skull Bash looked like a good start: Quinn was already great at running headfirst into things that using it as an actual attack should be no problem.

Flame looked up at him with a frown on his face as Rain handed his rival the TM for Fire Blast.

"You the only one that's really going to benefit from this." Rain told him bluntly, shaking the TM when he didn't take it, "And it's one of the strongest fire-type moves! If you don't want it, I'll just save it for myself to teach to one of my pokemon once I get one-"

Before he could finish, Flame hastily took the TM and held over Ignus, who squealed in excitement. The charmander bounced up and down like a toddler who'd eaten too much sugar before turning to one side and unleashing a gargantuan fireball at the wall. The stone instantly charred and cracked, chips of rock tumbling to the ground as the smoke dissipated. Ignus turned back to the trainers with a wide grin on her guilty face.

Kojo stepped warily away from the worryingly enthusiastic charmander, taking refuge behind his trainer. Leaf, on the other hand, was staring at the damage with a look of utter wonder on her slim face, "That is so cool."

There was something off about this, though. Rain wasn't entirely sure if the others could sense it judging by their excited expressions, but something was bugging him: yes, these were powerful and incredibly useful moves. They'd no doubt be extremely useful in helping them through the maze and - if it came to it - taking on Ice directly.

So if that was the case, why on Earth would Ice gift them with weapons that could defeat him?

* * *

AN: So, this is basically where the real AU kicks in.

I always wondered why nobody ever did anything about Team Rocket in the games despite the fact that they were obviously evil and everybody seemed to know that. So in this AU, they're still a high-profile organisation, their true motives are just unknown. That way, it makes a bit of sense as to why the Elite Four haven't just destroyed them already.


	10. Part One: Chapter Ten - Perspective

AN: Short chapter this time around, sorry.

* * *

 _Part One: Chapter Ten_

He never truly left them.

Every moment they were in the maze, the man who called himself 'Ice' could watch them.

He watched them walk.

He watched them battle.

He watched them argue.

He watched them swear that they'll find the exit and they'll beat his smug face into the ground.

 _ _Good.__ He thought to himself. He'd wronged them and they were angry. He'd wronged them and they were willing to bring him down at the first chance they could.

Ice slid down to sit against the stone wall, a few hundred metres back the way the kids had come. He'd watched them play with their new toys as they smashed at the walls as if it would set them free. They were practically drunk off their newfound strength. Of course, it would take a while for their pokemon to learn control over the new attacks, and who knew how long it would take until they were a high enough level for the moves to do some __real__ damage. But Ice could be a patient man if he wanted to and he wasn't too concerned.

At least he was starting to get a little less frustrated at them. He couldn't count the number of times he'd heard them complain about the lack of food while standing right next to one of the Recovery Centres - or 'rectangles' as they had simply called them. They were finally learning and adapting.

Just like he'd been hoping.

He rolled a Poké Ball between his fingers and released the pokemon within. A crobat burst out in a flash of white light. Now it was time to __really__ test these pokemon's new moves.

"Take out the pikachu first." He told him, "I want to see how they'll react when their biggest advantage is gone." The crobat nodded and fluttered down the hall to where the kids were headed. Ice watched him go before pulling back his sleeve to reveal a small screen strapped to his wrist. He tapped on it to start it up and scrolled through the various cameras until he found the one he was looking for.

Most times, he would go in person to watch a fight. This time however, he decided to be a little more cautious. There was no way of truly knowing how much control these trigger-happy pokemon had over their newly taught attacks and he didn't fancy becoming a target by accident.

He squinted at the screen and watched as his crobat appeared behind the unsuspecting kids, going in for the kill with a wing attack. It caught the pikachu by surprise, flinging it down the path like a little rag doll.

Instantly, the kids began to scream for their pokemon to use their new attacks.

Ice winced as the first Fire Blast hit its mark, but the next three were unsuccessful. Ignus opened her mouth to unleash another fireball but produced only a small Ember. His eyes drifted over to Flame; it looked like somebody had to teach this kid to be a little more patient and save his attacks.

The pikachu had dragged herself to her feet, but a quick Leech Life put her out of action. Ice had to admit, the fight was rather unfair. His crobat was pushing level 40 and these kids were training level 10s to 13s. But... Well... Unfortunately, he just didn't care.

His move seemed to have given the Leaf girl an idea. Over the small speaker, he heard her shout "Leech Seed!"

Good, good, somebody was learning here. He noticed that his crobat hadn't moved to avoid the seeds that were tossed at it. Good, he knew there was no way that the kids could win if he actually tried. But, how could they learn if they were beaten too quickly?

He was impressed with Leaf's move. Never once had he ever struck her as being the kind to have a memory for grass-type moves, much less know what kinds had what effects. For a while, he had been regretting choosing her but it looked like she was starting to learn how to survive here.

He didn't expect it, but he was feeling a sense of pride toward the kids. __Of course, they're still clumsy__. He thought to himself as he watched the Water Gun attack from Rain's squirtle that he called Quinn cancel out Ignus's Ember. __Baby steps. You can't expect them to be perfect trainers in under a week.__ Their pokemon were steadily levelling up and the trainers were gaining experience, too.

There was a flash of sparks and Ice leaned forward to stare closely at the screen. It turned out that Captain the pikachu hadn't fainted after all and was trying to paralyse his crobat with a series of weak Thunder Waves. He could help but smile a little at that; they'd most likely gotten the idea from that venomoth he'd sent after them. Another twinge of pride passed through him when he remembered how Rain had almost instantly recognised it was a trained pokemon.

He really __had__ chosen the right people for the challenge. Flame of course was a no-brainer: his psychic ability made him instantly valuable. The only issue with him was he'd hardly raised a finger against Ice himself. Well, that fear of challenging authority was something that could be changed in due time. All he needed was a few nudges in the right direction. Well, more like __shoves__ , but the boy would get there eventually. Sparky and Rain were both obvious choices with their previous experience around pokemon stemming from their families and though Leaf was more of a last-minute decision, it looked like he didn't have to worry about her being a burden for much longer.

All four of them still had a long way to go. And it was his job to make sure they could handle whatever was thrown at them.

Despite Kojo's valiant efforts, he was soon brought down by a Wing Attack. Ice was hardly surprised; he knew it wouldn't be long until the small grass-type would fall. All of his attacks - save Leech Seed - were nuisances at best, anyway.

Crobat didn't even need a trainer's instructions to bring the remaining pokemon to their knees. It only took a quick Razor Wind before they hit the ground and didn't get up.

The TMs had given the kids a quick confidence boost, they probably had been thinking they'd be able to take him down right then and there. The only thing they didn't seem to understand was that a move is only as strong as the pokemon using it. If your pokemon is clumsy, weak and undisciplined, the results would be unsatisfactory. Ice got to his feet, fingers hovering over the button to turn the screen off.

Maybe he was being a little too harsh on them, giving them hope for victory before completely crushing it. But just as they had to learn to be victorious, they had to learn that they weren't invincible. They had to know how to pick themselves back up after a defeat.

He was about to switch his device off when Crobat suddenly went crashing to the floor. He held it right in front of his eyes, wondering if he was seeing things. __The Leech Seeds__. He realised and laughed out loud. It looked like he was starting to underestimate them. He'd ignored the move as he hadn't expected it to take effect so quickly, but evidently he'd been wrong. It looked like he might have to start being a little careful in these battles; the kids weren't as dumb as he had himself believe.

He turned the screen off and waited a few minutes before making his way over to where Crobat would be waiting. It was highly unlikely the kids would seek him out with or without fainted pokemon, but he didn't want to take any chances. He'd had enough of their whining and accusing glares for a week. That stuff tired him out fast.

Yes, he understood that in committing what he was doing, he was the 'bad guy'. He was the villain. He would be demonised in the eyes of the kids, the media, his family, whoever found out about him. Those kids probably hated him by now, and with good reason. He'd kidnapped them, threatened them, never lifted a finger to help them... He wouldn't have been surprised if one or two of them was fantasising about sending one of their pokemon after him and tearing him limb from limb.

 _ _Let them.__ He thought to himself, raising Crobat's Poké Ball. The tired bat pokemon vanished inside it in a beam of red light. Their anger would only become their motivator, their driving force. When the maze will bring them down, they will get up thinking ' _ _I can't quit now. I can't let Ice win__ '. Hating him would only make them stronger.

And he was willing to sacrifice his own image to let that happen.

Spinning on his heels, he silently turned and walked back the way he came. He hadn't planned on the children to defeating Crobat, that had taken him by surprise. This was intended on being simply a little demonstration to stop them from getting too cocky. But it looked like they were more ready than he had initially thought. They'd learned the basics of the maze, now it was time for the challenge to __really__ begin.

He stopped at the end of the path and switched his device back on. Onscreen, the four children were carrying their beaten and exhausted pokemon in a tense silence. A mishmash of emotions; frustration, concern, fury and paranoia were smeared across their faces. But despite that, the determination was evident in their expressions. Their defeat had only fuelled their fires for some form of payback against him.

If only they knew what Ice had in store for them.


	11. Part One: Chapter Eleven - Peralta

_Part One: Chapter Eleven_

 _ _At what level does a grimer learn Disable?__

"15? 27? 9?"

Flame sighed and settled down on the cold floor, placing Ignus in his lap. The small pokemon had slipped into unconsciousness soon after the battle and had remained that way for the past half hour or so. The only pokemon that was still on their feet was Kojo, but he could barely stand. Paranoia hadn't taken long to sink in and he found himself checking behind them more often in case something was trying to sneak up from behind. He could see the others doing the same thing. Nobody had said it yet, but they were defenceless. If Flame had ever thought they were at their most vulnerable before, he was so wrong.

"21? 2? 43?" Sparky hissed in frustration and slapped her palm against the rectangle, "Come on! 15? Have we guessed 15? 14? 13? 11?"

Rain rolled his eyes, "Grimers learn the move later, stupid." he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"50!" Leaf piped up, "51-"

"Not that much later!" he snapped, crouching down beside the shape and placing Quinn on the floor, "16, 17, 18, 19-"

He was cut off by a loud buzzing sound that made all of them flinch. A robotic female voice coming from the rectangle cut through the following silence. __"Too many incorrect answers have been inputted. The correct answer is Level 1. Access permanently denied. Find a new Recovery Centre and try again."__

"Well, __that's__ never happened before." Rain muttered, sitting back on his haunches. Flame stared at the locked door of the 'Recovery Centre' in numb disbelief. They'd never had a limit on how many guesses they could make until it was locked for good, why were they getting one now? Whatever could have been inside, they needed it bad. Food, water, medicine... How long would it be until they found another one? There was no way they'd be able to put up a fight with their pokemon in this condition and they could only run for so long until exhaustion overtook them.

Maybe he was just overreacting. He chewed his lip as he look down at Ignus's snoozing form and stroked her warm orange scales. He undoubtedly didn't underestimate the charmander, but that day had proved that he was beginning to overestimate her instead. He had faith in her abilities, but perhaps a little too much faith. Ice was the strongest person in the maze and he didn't want them to forget it. It looked like they needed to be more careful.

Sparky got to her feet, running a hand through her hair, "Looks like we're going to have to keep moving until we find another one." she paused, "'Recovery Centre', huh? So that's what they're called."

"Who cares what the dumb rectangles are called?" Rain muttered, kicking the shape and placing Quinn down on the floor, "There's gotta be another way to get them open. Skull Bash!" Quinn flopped tiredly to the ground and yawned. "Skull Bash! Skull Bash! I said Skull Bash! ARGH!"

"That's not going to work." Leaf mumbled half to herself, hands toying with the rim of her white Premier Ball hat. Flame noticed that the edges had begun to fray slightly and the material turn grey with dirt over the past few days.

Rain rounded on her, "What do you expect me to do, then?" he demanded, "I don't see __you__ doing anything useful."

"Well what do you expect __me__ to do? Make Kojo try and break it open? If you can't do it, there's no way I can. I thought we'd already established that."

"Shut up, both of you." Sparky groaned, straightening up, "We're not going to get anywhere if you spend all this time whining at each other. Now we have two options: we can either keep looking until we find another one of these things or we could let our pokemon rest here and hope we don't get attacked."

"We're defenceless either way." Rain stated, "Though I have to admit, the first option sounds a lot better. It'll at least feel as if we're doing something productive."

"Fantastic! Now let's get going." Sparky turned to look at Leaf and Flame in turn, "Are you ready?" The half-hearted nods and Leaf's murmur of 'yeah ok' seemed to be good enough for her, "Good, let's get going."

Flame was glad that Sparky had taken charge; and not just because he knew he'd be unable to bear it if it had been Rain instead. There was no way Flame himself could be any kind of leader when he couldn't even talk and the idea of Leaf taking charge was almost laughable. Sparky seemed to give off the air of somebody who would listen to what you had to say. She wasn't a control freak, but she also wasn't a complete pushover. She was the kind of reasonable authority figure that Flame liked; kind of like Professor Oak.

Thinking about Pallet Town made him homesick. How long could it have been - a week? It was impossible to tell. How would his mother be feeling? He tried to shove away the thoughts as he trudged after Leaf on the path taking them deeper into the unknown. It wouldn't do him any good to dwell on the outside world in here, all it could do was make him feel even more terrible about his current position. As difficult as it was, he had to force himself to think about whatever future he had in getting out of here.

He could hear Ignus mumbling in her sleep as he walked, too soft for him to make out the words. He tried his best to be gentle and not wake her as he trailed behind the others, casting an occasional glance behind him.

" _ _Shut up and keep moving!__ "

Flame stopped in his tracks. He could have sworn he'd heard a whispered voice coming from behind one of the walls. Hesitantly, he looked around before noticing how far behind the others he'd fallen. For a few seconds, he hung behind and strained his ears for any sound apart from the footsteps of the other kids ahead of him but was met with nothing. He shook his head; he must have been imagining things. Still, he couldn't help but feel a prickle of unease as he hurried after his companions.

" _ _Do you think the boy can hear us?__ "

He stiffened. That time, he definitely hadn't imagined it. Somebody - or some _ _thing__ was nearby. And by the sound of it, they were hunting them.

No longer caring if he woke Ignus or not, he ran ahead to where Sparky was leading and tugged on her arm. The girl looked at him in confusion, "What is it?"

He jerked his head in the direction that he'd heard the voice. It was silent at that moment, but he knew that something was lurking there.

Sparky studied him quizzically, "I don't- Do you want us to go in that direction?"

Flame shook his head and tried to reach one-handed into his pocket to retrieve his notepad and pen. He fumbled for a moment as Ignus squirmed under his arm and he handed the charmander to Sparky to hold.

" _ _I don't see why you needed to wake me up__." Ignus protested tiredly as she snuggled up next to a disgruntled Captain, " _ _Hello there.__ "

Flame ignored her and Rain's disgruntled muttering at them having to stop as he scrawled his message down on the paper.

' _ _We're being followed by a pokemon.__ '

Sparky read it, a look of concern spreading across her face, "Do you know what species it is?"

He shook his head. How was he meant to know that? Leaf and Rain approached them and took the notebook to read for themselves.

"Well, this is just great." Rain said flatly, closing it and handing it back to Flame, " _ _Now__ we're well and truly screwed. It was nice knowing you all." he looked around without changing the almost bored expression that was plastered onto his face, "I'm just kidding. I can't stand any of you."

"Why would Ice do something like this?" Leaf asked, her green eyes wide and fearful, "I don't understand, what does he want?"

Sparky sighed loudly and ran both her hands through her hair; Flame noticed this appeared to be a nervous habit of hers. "I don't know, okay?" she said, her voice tight, "But we need to keep moving until either our pokemon have rested long enough to fight or we find some healing items. Hopefully whoever's following us is just as lost as we are."

Losing their pursuers in the maze wasn't the best plan they could think of, but it was the only viable option at the moment. Attempting to fight whatever threat was nearby would be suicide and it appeared that their only options when faced with a threat in the maze was to either fight or run.

Flame took Ignus back from Sparky and they carried on. Occasionally, one of the girls would look over to him and ask if he could still hear the voices, to which he'd shake his head. Eventually, he began to wonder whether or not they'd really managed to lose their followers when a scuffling noise sounded from ahead.

The four of them stopped to listen. Ignus perked her head up and her eyes narrowed slightly. " _ _Are those what I think they are?__ " she questioned.

Flame's mouth went awfully dry. All he could hear was the unmistakable sound of sharp claws against stone. It was the exact same sound the raticates made as they slunk through the maze with terrible purpose.

He hadn't noticed, but the other three had frozen in place. Leaf was hugging Kojo so tightly that the bulbasaur was squirming for breath. On any other occasion, Flame would have felt a rush of smug satisfaction at the obvious discomfort radiating from Rain, but at that moment he was too panicked himself to care. Sparky somehow looked ready to both flee and punch somebody in the face at the same time, standing with her fists clenched and her body half turned in the direction they came from as if she was about to bolt.

There was a squeak, a spine-tingling scratching noise like nails being scraped down a chalkboard and then everything was quiet.

Nobody moved. Nobody dared to breathe. Something appeared around the corner, crooked whiskers twitching. Flame had never imagined to see a creature whose pelt was riddled with so many scars. Thin, pale lines sliced through its fur and several claws were missing from its gnarled paws. But the thing that caught his attention the most was that the raticate only had one ear. The other was a shredded mess of ribbonlike scar tissue dangling from one side of its head.

" _ _That's him__." Ignus didn't sound excited at all. Flame himself had been expecting to feel some kind of fulfilment when they would finally come across the one-eared raticate; as if they'd discovered the key to escaping. Instead, only dread had filled him from the moment he'd laid eyes on the pokemon in front of him. He'd assumed that this wouldn't be easy, not that their awaited guide would be delivered to them like this. Something seemed very wrong.

" _ _You__."

Flame involuntarily flinched as the raticate addressed him. The rodent's voice was unexpectedly smooth, Flame had imagined it would come out as ragged as his appearance.

" _ _I don't have much time, we don't know when our master will return.__ " His eyes narrowed into slits, " _ _Stop looking at me like that. You can understand me, can't you? You are the Hashimoto boy, aren't you?__ "

" _ _Y-yes. Yes, I am.__ " Flame swallowed thickly, " _ _We were hoping-__ "

"Can you hear it?" Leaf's voice cut him off, "What's he saying?"

Flame cast her a look that he hoped would shut her up before continuing, " _ _We were hoping you could help us. We don't know how to get out-__ "

" _ _Well, that__ is _ _the purpose of a maze.__ " The raticate said dryly, " _ _You wouldn't be in here if it was easy to escape. The whole point of this entire thing is to challenge you and your pokemon. That's what Ice wants.__ "

" _ _But why? Why does Ice want to challenge us?__ "

The raticate made a noise that could have been a snort, " _ _How should I know? Do you think Ice is the kind of person who has in-depth conversations with rats? We're just his lackeys, we do his dirty work when he doesn't feel like challenging you.__ "

Flame chewed on his lip and tried to ignore the expectant looks coming from the other kids, " _ _Ignus tells me you captured her.__ "

The raticate studied him for a moment, " _ _Sit down.__ " It wasn't a request. Flame hurriedly obeyed and signalled for the others to do the same.

" _ _Oh, so now we're taking orders from a rat.__ " Flame heard Kojo say snidely, " _ _Fantastic. Does nobody here have a brain?__ "

" _ _I'm sorry not everyone can be as perfect as you.__ " Flame told him sarcastically, turning to the raticate, " _ _How did you find us? If you can navigate the maze, maybe we can too.__ "

The raticate flicked his intact ear, " _ _There's no secret to it. This entire place is monitored, we always know where you are. The hardest part is actually reaching you. Ice knows his way around here better than any of us, so-__ " He broke off and something that looked like a frown passed over his features as he turned his head back to where he had come from. " _ _Kelli, I told you- This is perfectly safe! They're harmless, come on out!__ "

At his words, a small female raticate tiptoed out from behind the wall and scurried over to where he was sitting. She mumbled an apology and ducked her head as she sat down beside him.

"Can you please tell us what's going on?" Sparky asked Flame, making a gesture for him to start writing. Flame held up a hand to tell her to hold on for a minute as he turned back to the raticates sitting before him.

" _ _Are you...__ " He hesitated, searching for the right word, " _ _Are you rebels?__ "

" _ _No!__ " Kelli exclaimed.

" _ _Yes__." the scarred raticate said bluntly.

" _ _Yes__." Kelli agreed shamefully, " _ _Sorry, Peralta.__ "

Peralta just sighed and shook his head, " _ _Listen, I said it before: we don't have long until Ice gets back. I need you kids to know that I'm on your side. I don't know what Ice is planning, but whatever it is, it's not worth you guys getting hurt. So I entrusted these kids - you call them Ignus, Captain, Quinn and Kojo - to you. But it looks like they're not going to be enough.__ "

" _ _What are you talking about?__ " Flame demanded, thankful that this communication was completely mental. Otherwise, his voice would have been unbearably high at that moment.

" _ _He's been testing you. You think you're safe just because you've beaten a few of his pokemon? All that's told him is that the eight of you are ready for the next phase of his plan.__ " Peralta's words made Flame's blood run cold. " _ _He's going to try and break you, kid. He's going to break all of you. That's what he wants to do.__ "

" _ _But why?__ "

Peralta let out a snarl of frustration that made both Flame and Kelli reel back in shock, " _ _How am I supposed to know? Now you need to listen to me, and listen well. Don't - under any circumstances - split up. You're safe as a group and you're safe with your pokemon. But if any of you find yourselves alone, he'll be upon you like a houndoom on a fresh piece of meat. Do you understand me?__ "

Wordlessly, Flame nodded.

" _ _What's going to come isn't just strong pokemon. Ice is a man who knows how to get to people. He knows how to get to each and every one of you, and he'll take great satisfaction in seeing you hurt. Kelli and I are going to try to keep an eye on you, but there's not much we can do. You four kids need to learn to work with each other and your pokemon. And__ you-" He turned to their pokemon that had been listening silently during that time, " _ _You need to learn to work with your trainers. I'm looking at you, Flower Boy.__ " Kojo glowered back at him.

"So what are they-" Rain began but Flame held his hand up again, feeling slightly queasy.

" _ _This maze- Does it really have an exit?__ " The question had been bugging him for some time. After a week of endless wandering, the idea that perhaps escape was nothing but wishful thinking plagued him, and Peralta's pause didn't help in the slightest.

" _ _Somewhere. Don't ask me where, but you can escape.__ "

Flame wasn't fooled, " _ _There's got to be a catch somewhere.__ " He said, " _ _There's no way Ice will just let us up and leave.__ "

The two raticates looked at each other, as if silently debating whether or not to answer. It was Kelli who finally spoke.

" _ _You see... The only way you can leave is if Ice decides you're ready...__ " She trailed away, eyes flickering nervously down to the floor.

Captain had crawled from Sparky's arms to stand unsteadily in front of her, " _ _Are you telling me our future lies in the hands of a madman?__ " She demanded, head whipping around to look at Quinn, " _ _Tell me she didn't just say that!__ "

Quinn's eyes were wide with an almost pathetic looking sadness, " _ _So we're stuck in here forever?__ "

Kojo huffed an aggravated sigh as he pulled himself out of Leaf's grasp, " _ _Fantastic, just fantastic.__ " He muttered, " _ _I've hated every minute I've been stuck here with you freaks and now you're telling me I might have to spend the rest of my life here?__ "

Ignus stood up as straight as possible, though she swayed slightly on her feet, " _ _You told me I needed to look after my trainer.__ " She said, her voice hard, " _ _How am I meant to do that when everything's up to that scary masked person?__ "

" _ _Well, I'm sorry but I don't make the rules!__ " Peralta snapped and the other pokemon immediately fell silent. He glared at each of them in turn and they shrank away from his withering glare, " _ _Ice makes the rules, we're all nothing but players in his little game. As far as I can see, you can either whine about how unfair life is or you can tough it out until he sets you free. I don't know when that might be or what you'll need to do to get there, but unless you want to stay in here until you die, that's your only option. Do you understand this or do I need to tell you again?__ "

Nobody said anything. Even the other humans seemed to realise that now wasn't a good time to ask what was being said.

Peralta sighed and flicked his tail. The tip of the appendage was missing, presumably from a previous fight, " _ _I just want you guys to know that you're not alone. You have Kelli and I on your side, and there are a couple other of Ice's pokemon that don't like what he's doing. But they're all scared of him, they've seen what he's capable of. If you think he's scary now, you should see him when he's not holding back in a fight.__ ' He paused and shared a look with Kelli, ' _ _I guess what I'm trying to say is that Ice is a powerful enemy. You're no match against him and I'm not sure if you ever will be.__ "

" _ _You're not exactly helping with our confidence.__ " Captain said flatly, looking as unimpressed as Flame had ever seen her.

Peralta ignored her, " _ _But I know that he wouldn't have chosen you for... For whatever this is, if he didn't think you could make it. You need to be strong if you want to survive, and I know you can. And maybe one day, you'll be strong enough to pay Ice back everything took from you. Believe me, I would love to see that happen.__ "

When nobody replied, he got to his paws and looked over at Kelli, " _ _We should get going; it'll look suspicious if he catches us with you.__ " He turned to leave, but hesitated at the last second, " _ _Remember, stay together. Ice will do everything he can to separate you. And whatever you do: survive.__ "

And with that, they were gone.

Ignus sighed and flopped down into Flame's lap, exhausted from forcing her tired legs to stand for so long, " _ _Well, that was underwhelming.__ " She mumbled, curling up into a tight ball, " _ _Don't worry about Ice, Flame. I'll... Protect... You...__ " She was instantly asleep without another word.

Captain folded her arms, staring distrustfully at the spot where the two raticates had been sitting a few moments ago, " _ _I still don't trust them.__ "

" _ _Me neither.__ " Kojo agreed, " _ _I think they want something from us. They probably expect us to owe them something now, bloody raticates. They think they're all so high and mighty when in reality, they eat trash. Literally. I've seen it and it's disgusting.__ "

" _ _Peralta's a funny name.__ " Quinn mused as he rolled backward to lie on his shell, " _ _Peralta Peralta Peralta Peralta...__ "

"So do you care to tell us what pearls of wisdom were bestowed upon you while we sat here and watched you stare at a rat?" Rain drawled, picking Quinn up and setting him upright only for the squirtle to roll onto his back once more.

Flame tried to summarise what had been said as best as he could. It was disappointingly easy considering the fact that there wasn't much information to be revealed from the conversation. They knew Ice was powerful and had already doubted that the raticate with one ear would be able to get them out easily. But all the same, there was still some insight to be gained.

"So you're saying that some of Ice's pokemon are rebellious." Sparky said, shrugging her jacket off and folding it to make a nest for Captain, "Well, that's a bit of a relief. At least we now know that not __everything__ is trying to kill us."

"Oh yippee yay hooray." Rain snorted, rolling his eyes, "How do you think we can tell apart who's trying to kill us and who isn't? If they've been sent to fight us, they'll fight us. And who cares if some of Ice's pokemon don't agree with him? It doesn't matter how they think if they don't act."

Sparky rolled her eyes back at him, "Well, aren't you a bright ray of sunshine. Try being a little optimistic for once."

"There's a difference between optimism and being an idiot. I prefer not to be the latter."

"So we can only leave here if Ice thinks we're ready." Leaf took the notebook from Rain's hands and read over it a few times, "What did they mean by 'when we're ready'? Ready for what?"

Flame shrugged and tried to keep his expression blank. He didn't want the others to see how sick that detail made him feel. 'Ready for what', indeed. The phrase implied that the maze wasn't all Ice was planning. It almost sounded like this hellhole was just the beginning and there was something even bigger waiting for them in the real world.

Not wanting to look anyone in the eye, he pulled off his vest and rolled it into a pillow. Careful not to disturb Ignus from her slumber, he set the sleeping lizard down on the ground beside him, lay down, closed his eyes and tried to shut out the sound of Sparky, Rain and Leaf contemplating whether or not they'd make it out alive.


	12. Part One: Chapter Twelve - Slipping

_Part One: Chapter Twelve_

Why bother anymore?

Rain didn't say this aloud, knowing that his words would undoubtedly be met by rolling eyes and possibly a 'shut up' coming from Sparky. But he knew he was raising a valid point and there was really no reason to not discuss it.

Why bother? What were they supposed to do now? Clearly, there was no way they could find an exit; it had just been confirmed that Ice controlled everything within the maze - their freedom included. Why should they keep wandering, hopelessly lost when they knew that they would never stumble upon a way out. It was all up to Ice. Ice decided when they were ready to leave. What exactly Flame meant by 'ready', Rain had no clue. He just knew that whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

Rain had always been called a pessimist by everyone he knew. But he preferred the word 'realist' a lot more. He was able to look at the situation they were in and realise that whatever they did was hopeless. They may as well just sit in the same spot all day and wait for Ice to come and get them, moving only when they needed to find food and water.

But no, of course the others just wanted to cling onto the delusion that maybe if they kept walking, they'd find some kind of fulfilment. And of course, since Rain wasn't stupid enough to let himself be left alone with nothing but a squirtle with below average intelligence, he had to go along with them.

He spent an unknown period of time glowering at the backs of everybody's head as he trailed behind. Quinn's rounded shell made him awkward to carry and he had to keep swapping arms as the turtle pokemon was, on top of that, surprisingly heavy. Rain cursed himself - not for the first time - for so hastily choosing a pokemon based off type advantages rather than its number of brain cells. As far as he could see, Kojo's strength was being wasted on Leaf. He made a mental note to offer a trade later on. Maybe the coddled girl would prefer a dumb pokemon, it would be a lot easier for her to train and he highly doubted Quinn would notice a change in trainers.

Maybe she somehow detected him thinking about her, because she stopped walking for a few seconds and turned to watch him catch up to her.

"Can I talk to you?" she asked him as he reached her.

It took all of his self control to not roll his eyes. What did this girl want from him? He'd been hoping that his sour attitude toward her meant that she wouldn't have to annoy him like this. Obviously, it would have to take a little more than that for her to leave him alone.

"What do you want?" he responded, refusing to look her in the eye.

At the edge of his vision, he saw her glance around a bit as if making sure nobody was listening, "Look, we got off to a bad start and I want to say that if I've done anything wrong, I'm sorry."

There was a silence. What now, was she expecting __him__ to apologise to her now? For what, being realistic? Calling her out on her entitled attitude? Did she expect everybody to treat her like a princess? Was it that hard for her to wrap her head around the fact that not everybody was in love with her?

"Did you do something wrong?" he asked her.

She hesitated for a moment, shifting her grip on Kojo so that she was carrying the bulbasaur under her arm, "Well, no-"

"Then why are you apologising?"

She didn't respond and Rain almost sighed. She was trying too hard to get on his good side.

When he decided that she wasn't going to say anything more, he went on, "Have you ever read __Nineteen Eighty-Four__?"

"No?" it sounded more like a question than a statement. Rain was only just able to suppress another sigh.

"Me neither. But I heard that there's this part near the end; the protagonist is captured by the bad guys and they begin to torture him both physically and mentally over the course of several months. They keep accusing him of crimes, most that he'd never committed. But he confesses to them all in hopes that maybe if he confesses enough, the pain will stop."

Leaf nodded slowly, Rain could almost see the gears turning in her head as she struggled to piece together what he was trying to say, "What does that have to do with anything?"

Rain actually rolled his eyes this time, " _ _If I've done anything wrong, I'm sorry.__ " he said, putting on a high-pitched voice that sounded nothing like her, "You're just like the __Nineteen Eighty-Four__ guy, you know that you're innocent and you haven't done anything wrong. But you think that maybe if you apologise enough, I'll stop treating you like my verbal punching bag. There's nothing sincere behind your apologies, you just think that if you throw enough of them at me, I'll stop."

Leaf's face flushed, "Well, it's not like you're completely innocent, either!" she said loud enough for both Sparky and Flame to turn around to look at them in confusion. If she cared about that though, it didn't show at all, "What's the deal with you, anyway? Why do you have to be such a- Such a-" she struggled to find the right word, "Such a jerk!"

Her overly frustrated delivery actually made Rain laugh. She looked so ridiculous with her face a deep shade of red, clinging to a reluctant bulbasaur who looked like he wanted to be anywhere but in her arms. Kojo's legs flailed as he almost slipped from her grasp and he let out a disgruntled whine that Leaf ignored.

Rain shrugged, holding Quinn in one hand as he stuck the other into his pocket, "I don't know, why are you such a neurotic weakling?" he retorted.

"I'm not a neurotic weakling!" it was oddly entertaining to watch Leaf let loose all the pent-up anger that must have been building up toward him over the past week. It was so unlike her to yell and scream at somebody that the entire thing gave off the air of a bizarre circus act.

"You're in denial."

"No I'm not!"

That made him snicker. She had completely lost control. Why was Rain a jerk? Honestly, it had taken him a long time to realise that he was one in the first place. It had taken him even longer to come to terms with it. But hey, why should he care? He was a jerk. He liked to see how far he could push people until they tipped over the edge and lashed back at him. It had earned him an unpopular name back at Pallet Town, but he didn't care. He'd had to put up with the other kids for years, it was about time that they had to start having to put up with him. And just because he was forced into a maze with a bunch of brats didn't mean he was suddenly going to become a nice guy.

"Stop it, both of you." Sparky stepped in, casting a glare at Rain, who simply shrugged. He was the ringleader, after all. He was fine to take responsibility for that. "If we want to get out of this place, we need to work together."

"So we're now taking advice from raticates?" Rain asked her, "Because last time I checked, those guys were trying to kill us."

Sparky hissed a sigh, "Well, do you have a better idea?" she demanded, running a hand through her hair with one hand as she supported Captain - who was struggling to keep her balance from her trainer's shoulder - with the other.

Rain had half a mind to voice his earlier thoughts on their position, but decided it would be better to keep his mouth shut. If these guys started yelling at him when he pointed out their obvious insincerity, they'd completely lose it if he suggested that everything they were doing was completely pointless.

Sparky looked like she was about to say something else, but she was fortunately stopped by Flame, who coughed to get their attention and waved in the direction of an intersection ahead. The girl cast a withering glare him before walking over to him. Leaf wiped tears from her eyes and hurried after her.

Undeniably, the girls hated him now. He could live with that. It's not like he was planning on forming any kind of long-term attachments to anybody in here. After over eleven years, Rain still had no idea what exactly Flame thought of him, though. The other boy's lack of expression made him almost impossible to read.

Rain pushed away the thoughts. He didn't care what any of these people thought of him and he never would start to. Heck, he'd probably forget all about Leaf and Sparky soon after he got out of the maze. He readjusted his hold on Quinn and headed over to where they had disappeared.

The three of them were directly around the corner, staring at something on the wall. Somebody had spray painted a red R on the stone. Sparky stepped forward and touched the paintwork.

"It's dry." she announced, taking a step away from it, "This has been here for a while."

Rain studied the symbol. He recognised it instantly, it belonged to Team Rocket. But what was the symbol of a privately-owned defence force doing __here__ of all places?

Another thought occurred to him: If the paint was old, that meant somebody had been here before. Maybe some vandals had snuck in a while back to paint this? If that was the case, it meant that maybe escape wasn't as impossible as Ice has insisted it to be. Rain had no idea why a vandal would want to paint Team Rocket of all people's logo inside a secluded building, but at the moment, he didn't care.

"Whoever put this here is long gone by now." Sparky continued, appearing to have had the same train of thought as Rain, "But they had to have gotten in here somewhere."

Leaf frowned, "But why is this still here?" she asked quietly, "All the other walls are clear, why would Ice leave this here? Unless it was made after we came..." she trailed away, her eyes widening, "Do you think Ice made this?"

What kind of question was that? Rain had half a mind to snap a sarcastic answer back at her, but he was a little concerned that he might end up getting punched if he tried to reopen the wounds caused by Leaf's previous outburst. "Why would he?" he settled with asking instead, "He's got no reason to."

Sparky nodded, "I'll have to agree with Rain on this one, shockingly enough." she said, "It just makes no sense. Shouldn't-" she cut off and stumbled backward, yellow eyes filled with horror.

Rain turned to look at what she was seeing and he found himself backing away, too. The red letter on the wall had begun to drip, previously dry paint running down the wall and pooling on the floor. An overwhelming coppery smell hit his nose and he gagged.

Flame was tugging on his sleeve, visibly panicking. He motioned toward the direction that they came and Rain understood what he was trying to say clearly: they were being followed.

"We need to get out of here." he hated the way his voice shook as he forced the words out. The girls looked all too happy to get away from the reddish substance that was staining the grey concrete floor.

A scraping sound came from their left. One, two, three, four... Eight raticates emerged from behind the wall. A second later, the ground seemed to shake as a huge grey figure appeared to block the way in which they'd came. The advancing rhyhorn lowered its head as if it was getting ready to charge.

They didn't need any more of a warning. Rain's shoes splashed in the red liquid as he sprinted down the only path left, almost slipping as he ran in a blind panic. He was dimly aware of somebody or something running beside him, but he had no way of knowing whether or not it was an ally.

The only thing that existed was him, the oncoming threat and Quinn lying motionless in his arms. Quinn! It was about time the thing became useful.

"Quinn," he panted, struggling to keep his breaths even as he pushed on, "Water Gun!"

Thank Arceus the stupid creature wasn't weak enough to carry out his command. He dragged himself into a standing position in Rain's arms and fired a high-pressure shot of water over his trainer's shoulder.

"Again!" he had no way of knowing whether or not the move hit anything, but only half of him cared. Whether or not it missed, it would hopefully slow down their pursuers a little.

He felt something grab ahold of him and the next thing he knew, he hit a wall. He crashed to the ground, his entire body stinging as Quinn rolled away from him. Rain groaned and reached a hand up to gently touch his face. Blood was already beginning to dribble from a cut lip and he had no idea how many bruises were going to form over the next few hours.

He jerked into a sitting position, ready to keep running but the monsters that had been chasing them just seconds ago were nowhere to be seen. It was just him and Quinn alone in the passages of the maze. He mentally kicked himself, Peralta had given them one job: Don't get separated. How ironic it was that that's exactly what happened just a few hours later.

Before he could begin to wonder what had happened, he heard a faint popping sound to his right and Leaf appeared out of thin air, an abra latched onto her arm. It disappeared again and reappeared a second later holding onto Kojo before vanishing for good.

Leaf turned around on the spot, her green eyes as wide as ever. They narrowed when they fell on Rain.

"Where are we?"

"Really?" Rain deadpanned, wiping any trace of amusement from his face, "Do you honestly expect me to know every little thing that happens in here? Just because you're too clueless to keep track of anything doesn't mean it's my job to babysit-"

"Kojo," her voice was dangerously low, "Vine Whip."

Even her pokemon seemed astonished, since it took a moment for him to respond. Rain scrambled backwards as the attack struck the floor in front of him, sending stone chips flying as a mark was gouged into the rock.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" he demanded, stumbling to his feet and looking around, locating Quinn sitting a few metres away from him. He didn't need to wait for a response, he knew exactly what was wrong with her.

He'd made her snap, alright. Just when there was nobody around to keep her under control. Now Sparky wasn't here to break up their conflict.

He didn't wait for her to give another command. If she wanted a battle, she was getting one. "Skull Bash!" he backed away as Quinn charged at her pokemon. He already had a type advantage in this fight, the best thing he could do was end this quickly.

"Sleep Powder." the move hit Quinn before he was even halfway to his target. The squirtle retreated back inside his shell and skidded down the hall until he hit a wall and was still. The bulb on Kojo's back glowed white in colour, cracking open to reveal the start of a brilliant pink blossom ready to bloom beneath a mess of thick leaves. The newly evolved ivysaur's red eyes widened in surprise at his transformation, but a quick glance at his seething trainer made him set his sights back on Rain, who stood defenceless before them.

Holy mother of Giratina, he was doomed.

* * *

Thanks for reading this chapter!

So a quick announcement: I'm going to go to Nepal in a week and I won't be able to write during my three week stay. I'll try to finish and upload the next chapter for you guys to read before then.

Reviews are always appreciated, I'd love to know what you guys think. Who do you love? Who do you hope gets punched in the face? Do you think I use too many raticates? What horrible things do you predict I will do to my characters? I'm really interested in your opinions!


	13. Part One: Chapter Thirteen - Concerns

_Part One: Chapter Thirteen_

Kojo had never expected himself to feel any form of fear toward a trainer. He'd always been the kind of pokemon who never understood what the other wild pokemon saw in humans. To him, being a trained pokemon just sounded like having somebody with no real power telling him what to do all the time. He was horrified when the raticate called Peralta had appeared before him and shoved him inside a Poké Ball and fought tooth and nail to escape. Then when he found himself being the leftover, forced to be the servant of a girl who seemed like she didn't know the first thing about pokemon. It felt as if fate was mocking him.

But he must have missed something when he looked at his trainer. He'd never expected her to get like _this_ when she was truly mad. Yes, 'mad' was just the right word to describe her at that moment. There was an inferno burning in the girl's eyes that he'd never imagined to see in his life. It looked like just her stare alone could vaporise lakes and lay waste to entire forests.

 _Is this really the same girl who I was forced into having as a trainer?_ He found himself thinking. He knew that some people and pokemon completely transformed when they were angry, but he never thought anybody could ever get this _drastic_.

Leaf sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes. For a few seconds she didn't say anything, letting the tension hang in the air. Kojo found himself wincing; Rain may not have been his favourite person, but even he wasn't going to directly attack the kid. He was astounded to find himself feeling a touch of concern over what his trainer would do if she _did_ wish him to harm the boy. He knew that he was more than capable of defending himself, even more so in his new evolved form. But as much as little as he cared for most humans, he didn't want to actually hurt any of them. They were all so much less durable than pokemon were, he knew he could cause serious damage if he wasn't careful.

"Let's go." her voice was as sharp as a knife as it cut through the silence. Without waiting to see if anybody was following her, she spun on her heel and stalked away.

Kojo hurried after her, stumbling a little. He had grown significantly and was still unused to the awkwardness of being in a new body. It didn't take him long to get the hang of it, though and he soon was able to keep up the pace, sticking to his trainer's side, only tripping over himself every now and again.

He heard a sniffling sound and glanced up at Leaf in time to see her wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. Already, the rage was beginning to subside and give way to hopelessness. But he knew he would never forget the poisonous contempt he'd seen boiling within her just minutes ago. Judging from the fact that Rain was still keeping his distance, the trainer wouldn't forget that in a hurry, either.

It was evident that Leaf had no idea where she was going. Kojo shook his head, he couldn't exactly roll his eyes at her when he was just as clueless. Even if she was just a human, she was as lost as he was. Lost, but still dangerous. He couldn't believe it; he was thinking of this human as _dangerous_. What could she do to him, kick him? ... Actually, that would be incredibly painful. He cast another quick look at her. Would she kick him? At that moment, she was blinking back tears and hugging her sides, but she still had the potential to hurt somebody.

Though it was still incredibly unlikely that she'd try and do something to _him_. Rain was different, he'd been asking for it. Kojo wasn't trying to wind anybody up, he wasn't asking for anything. It wasn't _his_ fault he was in this mess, that was all Peralta's fault for capturing him in the first place. At least at the moment, it appeared at he and Leaf were united by their desperation to leave this place. Maybe when they got out, she could release him. After all, she owed him something after he had spent this first week fighting off hordes of Ice's pokemon as she screamed and tried to run away.

He swore as he tripped over his own feet. For some reason, he'd always imagined that a new form would come naturally to him after evolution. After all, none of the Ivysaurs or Venusaurs of his herd had ever sat down and explained the full evolution process to him. He stiffened as he felt a pair of arms close around him and Leaf helped him back into a standing position. Even though he knew she couldn't understand him, he muttered a 'thank you' and carried on with his head down.

So they had to be 'ready' if they wanted to leave. What exactly was 'ready'? He'd beaten up some of Ice's pokemon, evolved, lived off human junk food for a week and had to put up with Ignus gushing over her 'special trainer'. In his mind, he was as ready as he could ever be to get as far away from here as possible. Maybe if he showed Ice that, the madman would let him out.

The more he thought about it, the more sense it seemed to make. After all, Peralta never said that they all had to be 'ready' at the same time to be set free. The others could waste their time by complaining about how unfair life was, but Kojo was going to get out of here. He tried to think up what exactly was required to be 'ready'. Of course, he still had no idea what they were supposed to be getting ready _for_ , but it was a no-brainer that it probably entailed some degree of resilience, strength, and - the word made Kojo feel a little queasy - obedience.

The thought of being a trained pokemon had never appealed to him and never would. The thought of somebody bossing him around still made him feel indescribable frustration. But it looked like if he ever wanted to see the light of day again, he'd have to swallow his pride and do whatever it took.

The sooner he did was was expected of him, the sooner he could get out. And the sooner he would never have to see these freaks again.

* * *

Ignus hit the ground and rolled, the hard concrete underneath knocking the breath from her. She hit the wall and stayed there, struggling to draw air into her lungs for a good ten seconds.

" _Are you ok?_ " she heard Flame ask. Her trainer crawled over to her, his palms grazed from the fall but otherwise unharmed. If she could, she would have sighed in relief. She hadn't failed to look after him. Not yet.

She struggled to force out a reply. " _Yes._ " she wheezed, finally managing to suck in a deep breath, " _I'm ok._ " she groaned and dragged herself into a sitting position. The fight with Ice's crobat had left her sore all over, and the fall hadn't helped at all. At least nothing seemed badly damaged. " _What just happened?_ "

" _It was an abra._ " Flame told her, picking her up in his arms, " _I don't know where it came from, but it took Leaf and Kojo. I'm guessing Rain and Quinn are with them because Sparky and Captain are with us._ "

Ignus turned her head to see the other trainer and her pikachu sitting against the wall nearby. Captain's black eyes were narrowed as she surveyed her surroundings, cheek pouches charged and crackling with electricity as if she was ready to zap anything that came too close.

"Does this all seem a little deliberate to you?" Sparky asked, running one hand through her hair. The girl's tired face was streaked with sweat and dirt and her clothes didn't look any cleaner. "I mean, the abra could have taken any of us anywhere and it decided to keep the four of us together. Do you think Ice overheard our conversation with Peralta?"

Flame set her down as he reached for his notepad. " _What are you writing?_ " Ignus asked him, curiously peering at the letters he was etching on the paper.

" _I'm telling her that Ice has no way of knowing what the conversation was about._ " Flame told her, " _Even if he did see us talking, how could he find out what was being said? I'm the only person I know who can understand pokemon like this_."

" _Maybe he taught one of his pokemon to write._ " Captain suggested, " _Do trainers usually do that?_ "

" _I'm not sure_." Flame admitted, holding up what he had written for Sparky to read, " _He might have. But that sounds a little unlikely, don't you think?_ "

Sparky frowned and looked at Flame, "Still, it's a little fishy that Ice split us up almost right after Peralta told us that's the last thing we should let happen. He must have found out somehow." she paused for a moment and sighed, "Never mind that, we need to find the others. Without Quinn and Kojo, we're half as strong as we should be."

As much as Ignus didn't like it, the girl was right. They'd just lost half of their fighters; the two trainers and their pokemon could be anywhere. Maybe they weren't even in the maze anymore. Maybe Leaf and the others were actually 'ready' already?

Heh, ready already. She couldn't help but smirk a little at how funny those words sounded together. Ready already, ready already, ready-

" _I'm still suspicious._ " Captain said, breaking through Ignus's thoughts, " _How long has it been since we were brought here? Ten minutes? This must have happened for a reason. Ice is probably preparing to launch an ambush on us at any second._ " she stumbled to her paws, tail lashing, " _We need to get moving or we're done for!_ "

Ignus frowned, " _But we were being chased before the abra came and took us away._ " she pointed out, " _If he wanted us to get into another fight, he wouldn't have bothered to teleport us away._ " she paused, thinking hard, " _Unless the abra wasn't supposed to do that and he's one of those rebellious pokemon Peral-whatshisface was talking about._ " her jaws opened into a yawn and she blinked rapidly in an attempt to keep herself awake. She almost hadn't noticed how tired she was.

" _That's possible, though still unlikely._ " Flame said, though the look on his face told Ignus that he was considering her words, " _Why wouldn't it have saved us when we were being chased before? And why would it risk Ice's wrath now? But that's still a possibility, I guess. Good thinking._ "

Out of the corner of her eye, Ignus caught sight of a frown crossing Sparky's expression, "Are you talking with them?" she asked him. Flame nodded a response, "What are you talking about?"

Flame wrote down a single word on his notepad and showed it to her.

"Nothing?" she didn't sound as if she believed it at all, "You're talking about... Nothing?" the disappointment in her voice made Ignus feel strangely guilty. It must have been hard to be the only person in a group who couldn't understand what everybody else was saying. Ignus heard Flame sigh softly and reach for the notepad again to recount their conversation.

" _So why do you think we're together?_ " Captain asked, finally looking as if she was beginning to believe they weren't in any immediate danger. She settled down in Sparky's lap, though Ignus could see her ears twitch every now and again as if she was straining them for the slightest of sounds.

" _What are you talking about?_ " Flame questioned, tucking the notebook away in his jacket after Sparky had finished reading what was written on it.

Ignus crawled into her own trainer's lap and curled up, resting her head on his knee. The events of that day had tired her out. She knew that she was supposed to be the one to look after Flame, but she could barely keep her own eyes open.

" _I mean, why are the four of us together? Why are Leaf, Rain and the others together? Why couldn't it have been Rain, Quinn, Sparky and I? Or you and Ignus with Rain and Quinn? The abra put us together, which most likely means that Ice planned for us to end up like this. Why?_ "

Ignus tried to turn the thought over in her head, but her mind was already becoming fogged up with exhaustion.

" _I should probably ask Sparky that, too._ " Flame's voice sounded a little exasperated, as if he was growing tired of reporting every conversation back to the other trainer. Ignus felt him shift slightly as he scribbled down the question and showed it to her.

There was a noticeable pause before Sparky responded "I have no idea."

Ignus was dimly aware of Captain carrying on the conversation and Flame responding as she slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

Sparky volunteered to keep watch despite every fibre of her being screaming at her that she needed rest. It was stupid and petty, but she wanted Flame and Captain to sleep so that they wouldn't be able to talk with one another. Sparky wanted to tear her hair out at how silly that sounded; why should she care if Flame was talking to her pokemon? A pokemon didn't get mad if its trainer was talking to another human.

But she was still somehow jealous. Flame was born lucky, he had a connection with pokemon that most trainers could only dream of having. Sparky had to forge that connection despite a language barrier. She had to work to create that trust and sense of comradeship between trainer and pokemon. With Flame, it came as naturally as it did between humans. He'd quickly created a strong bond with Ignus, and it looked like he was doing the same with Captain.

In truth, Sparky knew exactly why Ice had chosen Rain and Leaf to be forced together and her to end up stuck with Flame. It couldn't be a coincidence that Ice had made them end up with the person that they felt the most uncomfortable around.

It wasn't because Flame wasn't a bad person. No, he was incredibly likeable and easy to get along with. But it felt as if he was constantly rubbing his psychic ability in Sparky's face. Captain was _her_ pokemon, not his. Sparky was the one who was meant to be the most important human in Captain's life, they were supposed to have a sacred bond between a trainer and her starter. Instead, it felt as if Sparky was just a person who shouted out moves for Captain to use in a battle while Flame was the person she had a real connection to.

Before, she had passed this off as just her overreacting. But with each day, the concern seemed to grow little by little. She would have been perfectly alright with this if she'd been training Captain for a while before meeting Flame. That way, the two of them would already have formed a close connection. But it felt as if Flame was sabotaging that bond before it could properly form. What did this mean for the future? What if Sparky had to give up Captain because the pikachu didn't feel as if she was her real trainer? Losing her starter in such a way would be humiliating. How was she meant to face the challenges of the maze when she was only an afterthought to her own pokemon?

The thought made her sick. She cared so much for Captain. The moment she had lain her eyes on her Poké Ball, she knew exactly what pokemon she was going to choose. For a while, she had really thought that Captain was dead set on choosing her back.

She shook her head in an attempt to force that out of her head. Nothing was certain yet. What were the odds that Captain was going to forsake her? She was being selfish in trying to claim the pikachu all to herself. Captain was a living being, she was allowed to have friends.

Sparky groaned and ran both her hands through her hair. Who was she kidding? She knew that ignoring a problem only made it worse. But how was she supposed to talk about this to Captain? Or Flame for the matter? There was no doubt that they'll deny everything that she would say. It might even widen the rift that she felt steadily growing between the two of them and her.

She exhaled slowly, trying to calm herself down. What would her father do in this situation? She racked her brains for an answer. Well, he'd probably voice his concerns to Flame and... She had no idea what else he'd do but for some reason, she could easily imagine somebody getting punched. Alright, what would Rain do? Yeah, he'd definitely give Flame a piece of his mind. She groaned again, unable to believe that she was thinking of _Rain_ of all people for advice.

Everything pointed to her having to tell Flame how she felt. It had to happen eventually, there was no point in laying low and waiting for this issue to roll over. If she did, she'd lose any opportunity to talk about this before something catastrophic happened. But she was still afraid of hurting Flame. He wasn't a bad person, he just seemed a little... Oblivious about the whole thing. Even worse, she didn't want to lose Captain. That pokemon was her starter, the leader of the diverse and powerful team Sparky had dreamed about raising since she was a kid. Losing her to somebody who was almost a stranger would be devastating.

It was because of this that Sparky found herself wishing that Ice had paired her and Leaf together. Heck, she would have been glad to have been stuck with _Rain_ if it meant keeping Captain away from Flame.

She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, unable to keep them open for much longer. Careful not to wake Captain who was sleeping beside her in a nest made from her trainer's jacket, Sparky leaned over and shook Flame awake.

"Your turn to watch." she said, trying her best to keep all traces of coldness out of her voice. She didn't look to see if he was getting up as she curled up beside Captain, one arm drawn around the pikachu in an almost protective manner.

She wasn't going to let anybody steal her starter from her.

* * *

AN: So, that's Chapter Thirteen! Please tell me what you think, I'm always open for constructive criticism and I'm curious to see what you think of the story so far.


	14. Part One: Chapter Fourteen - Split

**AN: I'm terribly sorry that this is late. I've been procrastinating writing this for a really long time. I've gotten out of the habit of writing for over four weeks… Wow, that's a real long time… I have no idea how I'm going to work on this fic this year as I'm going into my final year at school with four major projects but I have the powers of procrastination on my side, I suppose.**

 **So without further ado, I give you the latest instalment in Singular.**

* * *

 _Part One: Chapter Fourteen_

" _Where are we going?_ "

Ignus's question was plain and simple. Unfortunately, Flame had no answer for it.

" _I'm not sure._ " he confessed, keeping his eyes fixed ahead of them, " _I guess all we can really do is just keep looking for food and try to endure whatever Ice throws at us._ " his response wasn't terribly optimistic, but it really was the only thing that they could do. They had to stay alive, that was all.

It was strange. A little over a week ago, his biggest concern was what pokemon he'd chose as his starter when the day he was meant to start his journey finally rolled around. Well, he had started some kind of journey, all right. It just wasn't the kind of journey that he'd prepared himself for. He'd anticipated wild pokemon that he could capture and train for himself, with fair battles against other trainers and restful nights in hotels. Not... Whatever _this_ was supposed to be.

Ignus mumbled in discontent and settled down onto his shoulder, " _That doesn't sound like much fun_."

" _Are you honestly worried about having_ fun _right now?_ " Captain demanded from where she was walking beside them, casting a look mingled with frustration and confusion up at the charmander, " _I think we have more pressing matters to think about right now. Won't you agree, Flame?_ "

Flame didn't want to be the one to take sides, but he had to agree with Captain on this. " _Having fun won't hurt,_ " he said carefully, " _but that's a little hard to do when we're stuck in a place that looks like it's been specifically designed to hurt us._ "

He heard Ignus sigh, " _That's a pity. I had hoped this would be a little more fun._ "

" _What exactly had you been expecting?_ " Flame questioned curiously, " _What did Peralta tell you before you were taken here?_ "

He felt Ignus shift on his shoulder as she thought up a response, " _I can't remember everything since it was a while ago-_ "

" _A week or so ago._ " Captain put in.

" _\- But I remember he told me that no matter who chose me, I had to protect them._ " Ignus went on as if the pikachu hadn't said anything, " _He said that my trainer - you - were going to suffer. We all were going to. But he said that the suffering was going to make us all stronger._ "

Flame rolled his eyes, " _I don't feel any stronger._ " he said, " _If anything, this place is just making me feel beaten down and miserable._ " Another thought occurred to him; a question that he - for the life of him - couldn't answer. Why would Ice want them to become stronger? Why should Ice care? Flame knew that he would have gotten stronger if he'd been allowed to go on a normal training journey like any other kid.

There had to be something special about the maze. Ice must have been doing something that the Gyms couldn't provide. But what? Traumatising experiences? Maybe Ice was a believer of the phrase 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger', but Flame knew that to be bogus; an aunt of his survived a house fire but since then needed a machine to breathe. He'd hardly call _that_ getting stronger.

Then there was also the conclusion that Ice was simply a madman. But Flame knew that that wasn't the case. A madman wouldn't have been able to organise this entire scheme and maintain this level of control over the four of them and their pokemon.

Flame sighed, the more he thought about Ice and what the man's true intentions were, the less sense his actions made. Why did he sometimes attack them directly but other times simply send out his pokemon? Why did they have to do a pop quiz every time they wanted to eat? Why did he at one point stop them to ask how much they knew of the Gym leaders? Why did he even want to make them stronger? Ice seemed plenty strong enough to Flame.

Ignus carried on as Flame mulled over Ice's seemingly random actions, " _There was also something he said, I don't know if I misheard it or not since he said it just as I was going back into my Poké Ball._ "

" _Did you now?_ " Captain mused, " _I'm amazed that you were actually paying attention to anything that filthy raticate was saying. I was too busy fighting tooth and claw to listen to his foul words._ "

Flame turned to Ignus, now intrigued, " _What did he say?_ "

Ignus opened her mouth to respond but she was cut off by a new voice.

"Are you guys talking about something?" Flame jumped, almost sending Ignus flying. After hours of walking in silence, he'd completely forgotten that Sparky was with them. He tried his best to wipe the guilty expression off his face as he turned around to look at her from where she'd been walking behind them.

 _'Just something about Peralta.'_ He wrote in his book. He felt a stab of unease when he noticed that he was running out of pages. At home, this was hardly an issue as he'd always have spare notebooks. Even then, his mother and a few of Pallet Town's residents had become experts in deciphering his body language. It was becoming a trek to have to write down everything for the others to understand him and by the looks of it, he would soon have to find another way to communicate.

Sparky read Flame's message, "Oh? What about him?"

 _'Nothing important'_ He had a feeling that this was a lie and that whatever Ignus had to say was incredibly important. But at that moment, he really didn't have the patience to write down everything that he was being told, especially since Ignus hadn't had the chance to tell him anything in the first place.

"Nothing important?" Sparky read, her voice dripping with skepticism, "How exactly is that the case?"

Flame tried to pretend as if he hadn't heard her, keeping his eyes fixed ahead of him. " _Sorry about that, what did he say?_ " he asked Ignus.

" _I apologise on behalf of my trainer._ " Captain put in, " _Perhaps we should fill her in on the details later._ "

" _Perhaps._ " Flame conceded, glancing at Ignus, " _Sorry again. So you were saying..?_ "

" _I swear I heard him say-_ "

"Flame, I know you heard me." Sparky groaned, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around, "Why isn't Peralta important? If our pokemon know something about him that we don't, I want to be told."

It took all of Flame's self control to not sigh in frustration as he scrawled down, _'I don't know anything about him because you keep interrupting Ignus before she can speak!'_

"So how do you know if it's important or not?" Sparky demanded, folding her arms.

 _'Ok, wrong choice of words.'_ Flame wrote, _'Can you be quiet and let Ignus finish?'_

Sparky frowned and looked at Flame, Ignus and Captain in turn, "Alright." she said at last, "But I want you to tell me exactly what she's saying. If we're going to be a team, we shouldn't start keeping secrets from one another."

Flame almost sighed again. There was a big difference between keeping a secret and not wanting to waste his limited supply of pages because Sparky was feeling left out. _He_ didn't complain when nobody spoke to him during their long days in the maze. She had no reason to complain that he wasn't speaking to her. He had half a mind to write all this down and show it to her, but it was a lot easier to just close the book, place it back into his jacket pocket and nod.

She didn't look completely satisfied as she nodded back. Did she really think he'd break his promise? If she did, she didn't say anything. She simply turned her gaze to Ignus, "I'm sorry if I interrupted you." she said cooly, "Please continue."

" _He said-_ "

" _Look at this!_ "

Flame groaned aloud and Sparky turned to him. "What did she say?" she demanded.

Flame shook his head to signify that she'd been once more interrupted and pointed at where Captain was standing by one of the walls. The pikachu had wandered ahead and apparently spotted something embedded in the wall above her. As Flame approached, he caught sight of something bronze in colour glinting beneath where stone fragments had crumbled out of the wall. Flame reached out with one hand and peeled away small pieces of the wall, drawing back when a particularly sharp shard sliced his finger.

"Hang on." Sparky nudged him to one side and braced herself before delivering a kick to the area. Cracks deepened and spread, spiderwebbing across the section where the strange bronze object was buried. Pieces of stone clattered to the ground, revealing text inscribed on the foreign object. Flame helped her clear away the parts of the wall that still covered it and took a step back to survey what they had found.

It was a plaque, the date on it read that it had been created ten years ago. The surface that may have once been smooth and shiny was scratched and dull from being hidden beneath the stone wall, making the inscription itself barely legible. Sparky squinted at the words and leaned closer to the plaque as she read what she saw aloud.

"For great acts of... De... Ded... Dedication toward the... Region of... Kanto, the Indigo League... Ah... Celebrates Gym Leader G... Gai... Ger... Oh, Giovanni-" she rolled her eyes, "Can't believe I got that wrong..." she muttered to herself before continuing, "- and his fer... Formation of T... Team Rocket in an act of... La... Loyalty toward Kanto and its people."

Well, that was... Useless. Flame couldn't help but feel his heart sink in dismay. He'd been hoping for some kind of clue to get out of the maze or at least something that would tell them how to find the others. Heck, he'd settle for some kind of taunting message from Ice at this point if it actually meant that they'd be making progress to get closer to whatever he deemed to be 'ready to leave'.

Ignus's voice broke through his thoughts, " _Flame?_ " she sounded concerned, " _Listen, I'm not entirely sure what you know about them, but Peralta told me that-_ "

"Look at this!" Sparky cut her off before the could continue and Flame slammed the palm of his hand against his forehead. This had better be important because he was at his wit's end with all these interruptions. By the sound of Captain's sigh, he knew that the pikachu was, too.

Sparky was too preoccupied with peeling away the pieces of wall beneath the plaque to notice Flame's irritated expression, "Look, there's more writing beneath!" she tore away a handful of stones to reveal a shining part of the plaque that looked as if it had been recently installed.

 _All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players_ _  
_ _Enjoy the show._  
\- Your cold-hearted friend

If the man was there at that moment, Flame wouldn't have hesitated to punch him, no matter what kind of authority he held over them or the powerful pokemon he had in his arsenal. Was that really what everything Flame and the other kids were going through was to him? A _show?_ Something to entertain himself with? Were they nothing but toys for him to play around with until he got bored?

He took a deep breath to compose himself. No, that couldn't be the case. If he had wanted to simply torment them, he wouldn't have gone through all the effort of organising the maze. And the fact that they needed to be made 'ready' didn't add up.

" _Flame!_ " Ignus was beginning to sound ever so slightly annoyed at the fact nobody seemed to be letting her speak, " _Tell everybody to shut up and not interrupt me, because I think what Peralta might have said is really, really important!_ "

Flame held his hand up just as Sparky opened her mouth to tell her to shut up and nodded at Ignus, " _Carry on._ "

Ignus took a deep breath, " _Before you chose me, I didn't think it was important at all._ " she said, " _But the longer I've been in this maze, the more I hear you and Ice mentioning this 'Team Rocket' thing._ "

" _So? What does that have to do with anything?_ "

" _What Peralta said to me - I swear he said 'Down with Team Rocket'._ "

* * *

Kojo's vines wrapped around the leg of the last raticate and he flung it across the hall. The raticate hit the ground with an ungraceful _thud_ before scrambling to its feet and darting into the unknown after its comrades.

Leaf took a step back and ran a hand through her tangled hair with an air of disgust. She was covered in filth and her hair was disgustingly dirty. She couldn't imagine how grateful she would be for a shower at this point. However, knowing Ice, said shower would most likely have acid instead of water.

But hygiene and appearances were the least of her problems. In the (approximately) three days since she and Rain had been separated from the others, a pack of six to eight raticates would come out of nowhere and attack them every few hours. Leaf was eternally grateful for Kojo's power boost from his evolution, but the continuous fighting was wearing on the ivysaur and Quinn. The fact that healing items were suddenly becoming more scarce wasn't helping in the least. They now had to rely completely on their pokemon getting a semi-decent 'night' sleep, which was more difficult than usual due to the fact that the raticates had a nasty habit of popping up at bad times for them.

"Left?" Rain's voice broke her out of her thoughts, jerking his head in the direction of the intersection they'd stopped at for the battle. Leaf opened her mouth to respond but he had already taken the turn, Quinn trailing behind him.

She heard Kojo huff a sigh and he looked at her as if to say 'Can you believe this guy?' as he waddled along beside her on his stubby legs. Leaf couldn't help but smile a little. The ivysaur's sudden change in behaviour was unexpected but not at all unwelcome. Leaf hadn't expected him to warm up to her so quickly, though she did have her suspicions on how sincere he was being. She'd occasionally catch him casting her an exasperated glare that she had been getting used to, or see him instinctively take a few steps back when he saw her approaching before he caught himself and stayed still.

She'd never intended on being a pokemon trainer, much less being forced into it by a man in a mask. She hadn't even been interested in pokemon at all for most of her childhood, save a few times when she'd begged her parents for a new pet, only to be turned down before finally giving her and her brother a meowth. Plenty of kids at school had a pokemon, trained one even, but Leaf hadn't even considered going on a journey. They'd always sounded so unappealing to her. You would be hiking across the region, being attacked by wild pokemon as you went and were challenged to battles by other trainers before taking refuge in a Pokemon Centre or two-star hotel to escape from the brutality of it all.

That sounded like Heaven compared to where Leaf was now.

At that moment, she would have given anything to be strolling through a lush, open grassland instead of between the cold stone walls of the maze. To feel the warm sunlight on her face and gentle breeze through her hair with a backpack filled with food weighing on her back. If she was lucky, there would be nobody but her and her pokemon for miles and they'd be alone with nothing but the sounds of birdsong to keep them company.

That would be the life. Who cared about wild pokemon? She could capture whichever ones she liked and have them fight for her. Who cared about the trainers? She could train her pokemon to be strong enough to scare them all away. Who cared about the dirt? She could bathe in the cool running springs every morning. After putting up with whatever the maze threw at her, she could survive the Kanto wilderness with ease.

She stayed beside Kojo and a few paces behind Rain, lost in her own thoughts. She wouldn't travel alone in her journey, no doubt. She would bring Flame along; he'd been pleasant company despite interacting little with the rest of the group. Sparky could probably come along, too. As she was the daughter of a Gym Leader, she was bound to have invaluable knowledge about all kinds of areas regarding pokemon training. And Rain would have to be make the journey by himself. There was no way Leaf was going to let him ruin all their fun.

She stopped in her tracks, an involuntary frown crossing her face. She turned around and looked left and right.

"What is it now?" Rain had an irritated edge to his voice. But then again, he seemed to always have a somewhat irritated edge to his voice.

Leaf stared down the empty path, narrowing her eyes in confusion. For a moment, she could have sworn that she'd felt an uncomfortable prickling sensation at the back of her neck. As if she was being watched by invisible eyes. But the feeling was gone from the moment she'd turned around.

"I thought I heard something." she said, facing him again, "I thought the raticates might have come back, but maybe they haven't." It was only half a lie. She had her anxieties that the raticates were only a few turns behind them. She just knew that she'd sound stupid if she'd said that she'd 'felt them staring at her'. Rain was making fun of her considerably less due to the fact that she now had an evolved pokemon on top of the type advantage she already had over him and she didn't want that to change.

Rain just rolled his eyes and kept walking, "If we're going to fight them again, it's going to happen whether we want it to or not." he said flatly, "There's no point in getting paranoid over it."

Leaf heard Kojo snort, which she interpreted to mean 'Typical Rain. The guy needs to lighten up a little' as she hurried to catch up to him. Although she tried her best, she couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that they were being followed for a long time.

She caught sight of the Recovery Centre before Rain about half an hour later. She called him over and crouched beside it to read the question inscribed within the rectangular outline of the compartment in the wall.

'At _what level does a meowth learn the move Pay Day?_ '

Rain groaned in annoyance, "I hate these." he muttered half to himself, "Nobody ever remembers this kind of thing..."

But Leaf felt her heart leap as she processed the words. She remembered when her parents had given her and Root their meowth: Holt. It was right in the middle of a huge pokemon craze that had swept through the school, when all the kids brought any pokemon that so much as lived within a kilometre near their house to school to battle with. The teachers had eventually had to start confiscating pokemon at lunchtime as the entire thing soon got out of hand. But while it lasted, Leaf had been trying to research everything she could about Holt's moves so that she could battle the other kids for pocket money. The move Pay Day had stuck in her mind so much because she'd always found it so inconvenient. A move that produced money. What more could you ask for? And all you had to do was wait until your meowth grew to level-

"Seventeen." she said and the Recovery Centre's door swung open. She somehow managed to hide her victorious smirk when she caught sight of Rain's astounded expression and turned her attention to the contents of the Centre.

There was water, and a lot of it much to her relief. They'd so far managed to avoid drinking the water that Quinn produced for his attacks. Judging by the fact that it came from his mouth, Leaf didn't count on it being completely hygienic. As well as that, there were a couple of Super Potions that Leaf wasn't at all expecting. But the thing that really caught her off guard was the cake.

It was covered in blue frosting, with the words _Happy Birthday_ written clumsily across it in rainbow chocolates and eleven unlit blue candles had been stuck into it. By the looks of it, the cake wasn't store-bought. Leaf couldn't help but snicker at the thought of Ice actually baking and decorating a cake of all things for seemingly no reason at all. It had been Leaf's birthday just a week before she'd woken up in the maze, so why would he bother-

Her gaze darted to Rain, who was standing beside her with his expression unreadable. She bit her lip and quickly glanced away, praying that he didn't think that she had been laughing at him.

But whatever he felt, he sure didn't voice any of it. "I'm not hungry, you guys can eat that." he muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets and storming down the hall. Quinn cast him a confused look before digging in. Leaf wisely decided it was best not to say anything on the subject as they carried on.

They didn't see a trace of the raticates for what Leaf estimated to be an entire day.

Ordinarily, she would have considered this to be something to be celebrated. At least, Rain appeared to be less sour and sarcastic before he went to sleep slumped against the wall as Leaf stayed up to keep watch. But she couldn't help but find the sudden silence eerie. She stayed up through the 'night', eyes on either side of the path they'd camped in, wired up to react at the slightest of movements and the softest of sounds. But as the hours dragged by, she was met with nothing more than stillness and silence.

The raticates should have been back by then. They had never left them alone for so long since the separation. As Leaf woke Rain up and lay down on the hard ground to sleep, two disturbing thoughts occurred to her.

What if the raticates hadn't attacked yet because there was something more dangerous lurking in the maze?

And if it wasn't the raticates watching her earlier, then what was?

* * *

 **AN: I know that meowths learn Pay Day at level 30, but back in the first generation they learned it way back at level 17. This kind of thing seems to change with every passing generation.**

 **And some of you may have noticed by now that Peralta and Holt are named after characters from Brooklyn Nine Nine. This was actually unintentional, I only noticed after I'd named the two of them and I liked the names just the way they were. Although this Peralta is nothing like the one from the show.**


	15. Part One: Chapter Fifteen - Anticipation

AN: I've been ever so slightly unmotivated to write lately. That and the fact that I'm really bust are what's made this chapter so late. All the same, I really like this story and hope I can keep updating soon.

* * *

 _Part One: Chapter Fifteen_

"I still don't understand." Sparky said. She was sitting with her back against the wall, opposite Flame, "Why would Team Rocket need to be brought down? And why should Peralta care whether or not they do?" It had been hours and she still had no idea what the raticate could have meant. Flame mentioned that Ignus could have been hearing things and said nothing more on the subject, but Sparky wasn't ready to let the whole thing drop.

She knew now that Ice and Team Rocket had some kind of connection. Why would he leave a plaque for them mentioning both himself and Team Rocket? Granted, the plaque hadn't given anything away exactly, but the fact that he made the choice to include the two of them together had to mean _something_. But what that was exactly, she had no idea.

Ice wanted them to be 'ready' to leave, but he also wanted to break them. What that man wanted, Sparky had no clue and she doubted she'd figure him out anytime soon. But there was something very calculated in his decisions so far. He'd been in control this entire time, so anything that had happened was due to his own choices. He was smart; smarter than Sparky wanted to admit. He was three steps ahead of them and was always watching as they fumbled in the darkness, completely at his mercy. If he wanted, he could kill any one of them. He could cripple them right that second if he felt like it. But he didn't. Sparky knew he had to have some kind of bigger plan, but she had no time to think about as she was far too busy trying not to get herself or others seriously injured.

Another thing that she couldn't help but wonder was whether it was Ice who wanted Team Rocket destroyed or Peralta. Ice had some kind of connection, that was for sure. But if he wanted the organisation destroyed, there was nothing stopping him from doing it himself. He had plenty of powerful pokemon; why would he need Sparky and the others? How in the world would putting them through whatever he was planning on putting them through help at all?

Flame didn't respond to her question; not that she expected him to. He was probably wondering the same thing, though. Although they had hardly discussed him among themselves, Sparky had a feeling that Ice was always on some part of their mind. How could he not be? Every second they spent trapped here reeked of his pervasive influence. A shiver passed down her spine as her gaze swept across the path she, Flame and their pokemon had stopped to rest in. Even though she knew they were as alone as they could get, she felt as if something was lying in wait for them.

... Or were they really alone?

She stiffened when she swore she heart a scuffling noise. Captain sat bolt upright at the unmistakable sound of another pokemon's footsteps somewhere nearby. Flame was on his feet in an instant, Ignus crouched before him in a fighting stance.

Everything was silent once more and Flame visibly relaxed slightly as a hideously scarred raticate stepped into the open, followed by a smaller companion with who ducked her head nervously as they approached.

On one hand, Sparky was relieved that neither Peralta nor Kelli had any malicious intentions as far as she knew. On the other hand, she was not in the mood to sit by and watch Flame talking to somebody else before filling her in with meagre details.

Suppressing a sigh, she sat back as Captain scurried forward to join in the conversation and waited for it all to be over.

* * *

" _You're back!_ " Flame never thought he'd ever be relieved to see Peralta's ugly face again, " _We lost the others, do you know where-_ "

" _I gave you one job._ " Peralta's snarl cut him off and Flame found himself taking an involuntary step back, " _Do you remember what I told you? I said that no matter what, you were supposed to STICK TOGETHER. Nice work! You got yourselves separated practically right after I said that! It takes a certain level of incompetence to do that, I applaud you!_ "

Kelli winced at his tone, " _I don't think it's entirely necessary to talk to the kid like that._ " She said tentatively, " _He's gone through a lot-_ "

" _Oh, he's going to go through a lot more now that Ice can get him alone._ " Peralta said darkly, " _I overheard him mentioning the things he wanted to do to that Rain kid and let me tell you, it's not pretty._ "

Flame could feel his heart leap, " _What are you talking about?_ " The thought of anything happening to anybody made his stomach turn; even if that person was Rain. Knowing Ice, whatever he was planning couldn't be pleasant, " _Do you know what's going to happen?_ "

Peralta fixed him with a withering glare, " _What happens to that brat is no concern of yours, you can't help him when you're on the other side of the maze._ " He snapped, " _Worry about yourself first, you don't have time to try and be a hero._ "

Flame bit back a snarky comment. Had Peralta nothing better to do than track them down just to berate him? And he wasn't planning on 'being a hero' anytime soon, he just wanted to get out of this place without getting hurt.

" _Remind me, aren't you supposed to be a good guy?_ " Captain asked, sitting down beside Flame as she glared at the raticates before them. Ignus joined her, sitting on Flame's other side.

Kelli looked a little embarrassed at Captain's remark, " _We're on your side, there's just not a lot we can do to help. But... We do know a little of what could happen to you..._ " She spoke up hesitantly, sparing a glance at Peralta as if she expected him to start snarling at her too, " _He wants you to fight him._ "

" _Fight him?_ " Flame echoed. She had to be joking, but the look on her face was dead serious. There was no way he could go up against Ice and survive. Ice was stronger and smarter than him. Ice was the one in control; he always had been. He was a puppeteer, pulling on the strings of Flame and the others and watching as they blundered blindly along, trying desperately to break free from his influence. Flame had wanted to escape, but the last thing he wanted to do was actually battle their captor. What hope did he have of succeeding?

Peralta nodded, " _Five days from now._ " He said, " _You and Ignus alone. The girl isn't allowed to join in._ " He jerked his head in Sparky's direction, " _Ice specifically said that if she interferes, he'll gouge out one of your eyes._ "

Ignus gave a squeak of alarm, " _What?_ " Her eyes grew wide, " _He can't!_ "

Flame felt his mouth go dry. He had a feeling that Ice wouldn't hesitate to stick to that promise, " _Why one of mine?_ " He asked weakly.

" _From what Ice has seen, she appears to have a bit of a hero complex._ " Peralta said, his voice oddly flat, " _If he hurts her, she'll press on. But if he hurts somebody innocent because of her, it will have a more profound impact. Ice knows exactly where to hit somebody if he wants to break them. But I'm sure you already knew that, didn't you?_ " A rather nasty look crossed his face when Flame wordlessly dipped his head in a nod, " _Of course you did. Clever boy._ "

He felt sick. His heartbeat echoed in his ears, thudding viciously in his chest. He wanted to say something to confirm that what he had been hearing had actually been said, but his mind had gone completely blank. He had to fight Ice. Alone. If somebody tried to help, he'd have one of his eyes cut out and if he refused to battle... Who knew what might happen? Running wasn't an option, Ice would find him. There was no way to avoid it.

" _I think he's going to throw up_." Kelli's voice was filled with concern as she crept over to him, " _Do you want to sit down?_ "

Flame shook his head, forcing himself to concentrate on the matter at hand, " _How am I meant to beat him?_ " He asked helplessly, " _I know we've gotten stronger since we got here, but we're nowhere near strong enough._ "

Ignus nodded sadly, " _It's true._ " She admitted with a sigh, " _I've got this nice move that lets me shoot that huge fireball, but I can't use it very often. And Ice probably isn't going to use only one pokemon to fight. What happens if we lose?_ "

Peralta shrugged, " _Don't know. Just don't lose and we hopefully won't have to find out._ "

" _Well thank you for that, you've been incredibly helpful._ " Captain said sarcastically, " _Do you have anything important to say or are you going to make us feel even worse than we already do?_ "

Peralta bared his yellow teeth at her, " _I do, as a matter of fact._ " He hissed, " _Three left turns from here, you'll find a Recovery Centre. It's password is Level 9 and it's full of super potions. There are at least seven of them inside._ "

" _We can use them during our fight with Ice!_ " Ignus spoke up excitedly.

" _Congratulations on your brilliant observation_." Peralta said sourly, " _But no. You're going to save two or three for Ice, the rest you're going to use during your training._ "

" _Training?_ " Flame repeated dumbly. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Ice wanted to fight _him_.

Peralta rolled his eyes, " _You think I'm going to let you go up against that maniac with a charmander?_ " He demanded, " _The battle would be over in seconds! We have five days, that's enough time to get Ignus to evolve. She's close at the moment, we just need to give her a little push so that she'll reach her next stage. Now come on, let's not waste time._ " Without waiting for a response, he turned around and stalked away, stopping where the path turned right, " _Are you coming or not?_ "

Flame hesitated and glanced down at Ignus and Captain, " _Are you really going to trust this freak?_ " Captain demanded, shooting a glare in Peralta's direction, " _He's hardly been useful so far and nothing he's done has proved he's completely on our side._ "

" _We don't have many options._ " Flame told her with a sigh, " _If we can get any help in here, I'll be happy to take it no matter who it's coming from._ "

" _Even if it were coming from Ice?_ "

" _Well, maybe not then._ " Flame conceded, looking over to Peralta to was watching them with growing impatience, " _I don't know what he wants, but we aren't in the position to worry about that now._ "

Captain nodded slowly, " _I don't like any of this at all._ " She said, " _But I guess you're right. We shouldn't look a gift ponyta in the mouth, as much as I want to._ "

The pikachu and Ignus scurried after Peralta and Kelli as Flame turned around to face Sparky. The girl had been silent the entire time, sitting with her back against the wall and her arms folded.

"Where are we going?" She asked, though she made no move to stand up. Flame held out a hand and she begrudgingly took it, "What did they tell you?"

As they walked, Flame fumbled for his notebook. He really was running out of pages. Keeping an eye on their pokemon and the raticates walking in front of them, he wrote _'They say Ice wants to fight me.'_

Sparky read what he'd written, "Why you?" She asked, mirroring his own thoughts. He shrugged, how was he supposed to know? The raticates hadn't given him a clear answer and he highly doubted they knew, themselves. Nobody seemed to know what was going on inside Ice's head.

That just made him all the more dangerous.

They reached the Recovery Centre that Peralta had spoken about and Flame wrote down the password for Sparky to read out without even bothering to look at the question being asked. Flame could feel his stomach twist and turn as he thought of how every second brought them closer to the day Ice was going to fight him. Five days. Not long ago, that would have been an eternity to wait. Here, it felt like no time at all.

Sparky picked Captain despite the the rodent's protests and placed her on her shoulder. The moment Sparky let go, Captain immediately scampered back down to stand beside Flame. He tried not to meet Sparky's disappointed gaze and instead fixed his eyes on Kelli dragging all the super potions out of the wall cavity.

" _Nine, ten, eleven. Wow, this is even better than I'd expected!_ " The raticate took a step back to admire the small pile of red bottles.

If Peralta had been remotely excited about that, he didn't show it. He got to his paws and faced Ignus.

" _We have the rest of the day to train before Kelli and I will have to leave._ " He said, " _We start now._ "

Before Ignus had the chance to respond, he lunged at her and buried his fangs in her shoulder.

* * *

Rain was slammed against the wall, head smashing against stone. Bright lights exploded before his eyes as he hit the ground. Something trickled down the back of his neck, soaking his shirt. He tried to drag himself into a sitting position but a vine wrapped around his throat, cutting into the skin of his neck.

The ivysaur watched him, expression devoid of any emotion as it strangled him. Ice stood by with his arms folded, head quizzically tilted to one side as he observed the scene before him.

"Not bad, not bad." The man mused, eyes flicking back and forth between Rain and the ivysaur, "I see you're coming along just fine."

Rain clawed at the tendril locked around his neck, desperately trying to pry it off. But the ivysaur had an iron grip. Darkness was blooming at the edges of his vision. Blood was starting to dribble from his neck.

Ice sighed, taking slow, deliberate steps toward Rain. "Now this is a real shame." He murmured, though it sounded as if he was talking to himself rather than Rain, "I was expecting more out of you." He held up and hand and the ivysaur let go. Rain gasped, unable to move a muscle as he lay helplessly on the ground.

Ice was still watching him with those impassive eyes of his. The bastard was probably thinking about killing him right then and there. Rain glared back, wheezing as he painfully forced air back into his lungs. If that's what was going to happen, so be it. He wasn't going to give Ice the satisfaction of watching him beg for his life.

"You're thinking I'm considering killing you." Ice said, crouching down beside Rain. Rain's glare didn't falter, "If I wanted to, I would have already done so. Plus, you're all so much more fun when you're alive." He sat down, crossing his legs casually, "I don't think we've ever had the pleasure of properly meeting."

"Piss off." Rain couldn't think of anything else to say, but he felt as if his words accurately conveyed what he was feeling.

Ice laughed, "You've got spirit, I like that. It's made all of this a lot more interesting."

Rain scowled. If it was possible, he hated the man even more than he had previously. He wasn't going to be another 'interesting' pawn in whatever game Ice was playing. He was more than something Ice could toy with however he pleased.

"Quinn!" Rain shouted, struggling to drag himself to his feet. Where was the squirtle? He better not have abandoned Rain when he needed him. He tumbled back to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood. "Quinn!" His pokemon was nowhere to be seen. Unable to stand, he knelt on the floor, doubled over in pain, "What have you done to him?"

"Calm down, your pokemon is fine." Ice held a tissue out to him. Rain shoved his hand away and almost lost his fragile balance. The man just shrugged and put them back into his pocket, "If it helps you at all, this is just a dream."

Rain stared at him, uncertain if Ice was joking or not. But it did make some sense; Ice had come from nowhere and both Leaf and Quinn had conveniently disappeared without a trace. But... It felt too real to have been a fantasy. Rain tentatively reached a hand up to his neck to feel the wounds caused by the ivysaur's vines, expecting to feel wet blood but was instead met with dry, unbroken skin.

On one hand, he was relieved that none of this was really occurring. On the other hand, there was something wrong with this dream.

As if sensing his thoughts, Ice spoke, "You're under the effects of the move Dream Eater." He explained, "I thought it was about time the two of us had a talk."

Rain's eyes narrowed, "You sent one of your pokemon after me." He spat. If Ice thought he was going to start acting friendly toward his kidnapper, he was wrong. The man's ivysaur had just tried to garrote him for no reason at all.

Something that looked like a frown crossed Ice's features, "I wanted to see what would happen." He said, "Would you run? Would you try and fight back? Would you do nothing and let yourself get strangled?"

"What do you want?"

"Well to be completely honest, I want to break you." Ice shuffled backwards so he was leaning against the wall, "You're so irritatingly stubborn, you know? Leaf never needed to be broken, Sparky's starting to crack, I'm only just getting started on Flame and-" He paused, as if considering whether or not to continue, "Well, you get the idea."

Rain had never wanted to punch a man as much as Ice. He may have never cared much for the other children in the maze, but to talk about wanting to hurt them for seemingly no reason made Rain's blood boil. And for him to talk so casually about it... Who did Ice think he was? What could possibly come out of all of this?

"Don't worry, I have a very good reason for doing all of this." Ice said, his voice eerily calm, "You might not understand it, but this is all for the greater good."

Forgetting about his dizziness, Rain lashed out. His fist connected with the side of Ice's masked face and the man was sent sprawling across the floor. A fresh wave of pain was instantly sent down his wrist, but Rain hardly cared.

Ice raised a hand to his cheek, feeling where Rain had struck him. For a moment, the look in his eyes was unreadable and then he chuckled.

"I guess I can't get mad at you for that. I had it coming, didn't I?" He got to his feet, the amusement not fading from his voice, "You must hate me so much, don't you? That must have felt good. You've wanted to punch me for a while, haven't you?" He waited for a response that he never got.

Rain didn't want to answer that. He wasn't used to people like Ice; people who made him genuinely mad. People who were stronger than he was, mentally and physically. He was used to being surrounded by people like Flame and Leaf, who either couldn't talk back or didn't have the guts to. Ice did what he wanted, Rain didn't matter at all to him. He was a bully picking on those who had no way of defending themselves.

So he was a little bit like the person who Rain was used to being.

Rain pushed that thought aside. He was nothing like this sadist. He'd never do anything this extreme. He'd never harm, abuse or threaten anybody the way Ice had. Ice was more than a bully, he was... Something much more dangerous.

The silence seemed to satisfy Ice, "You haven't seen anything yet." He all but purred, "Just wait. Sooner or later, you'll be wanting to tear me limb from limb."

A shriek tore him from his dream and he jerked awake just in time to see the hypno vanish into thin air.

Leaf was on her feet, eyes wide with astonishment as she scanned the hall they were in. Kojo was beside her, his vines extended as if he expected Ice's pokemon to return at any second. The sight reminded Rain of the ivysaur from his dream and he felt his hand creeping towards his neck. He could almost feel the vines biting into his skin and drawing blood.

"That thing came out of nowhere." Leaf was saying, barely concealed hysteria evident in her voice, "It hit Kojo with Hypnosis first, then me. How long were we asleep? Did it do anything to you?"

"I'm fine." Rain said roughly, though he knew he felt anything but fine. Was he going to have to put up with Ice when he was both asleep and awake now? He sure as hell hoped that wasn't going to be the case.

Thinking about it made his skin crawl and he found himself looking behind him as if he expected to see somebody watching them. Even when he was met with nothing, he couldn't help but feel as if something was spying on them.

"Go to sleep." He said to Leaf, gesturing to the ground. He refused to meet her concerned gaze and kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on the path before them.

"I'm not tired." She responded, refusing to budge, "We should just let our pokemon rest."

The two of them looked down at their pokemon. Kojo and Quinn exchanged a look before the former shook his head stubbornly. Rain couldn't help but sigh; he had no idea if they were telling the truth or they were only being polite because they didn't want him to think they weren't concerned about him.

"Then we'll go on." He expected someone to protest as he hauled himself to his feet and stalked off in the direction that they'd been heading without looking back. But within seconds, he could hear the sound of footsteps following him.

Ten minutes later, they rounded a corner to find a gang of five raticates waiting for them. An involuntary snarl of frustration escaped Rain; he was not in the mood for this.

All the same, he couldn't stop the feeling of satisfaction he felt blossom inside him at the thought of finding something he could vent his feelings of anger and paranoia at.

"Quinn." He said, eyes narrowing as he glared at the snarling rodents, "Skull Bash."

He was going to teach Ice not to mess with him again.


	16. Part One: Chapter Sixteen - Comfort

_Part One: Chapter Sixteen_

Ignus tore away from Peralta, stumbling as blood streamed down her shoulder. She crouched a few metres away from him, seemingly ignoring the agony she must have been in as her flaming tail lashed back and forth, her tiny body tensed in anticipation.

"Captain, Thundershock!" Sparky felt her heart race at the scene before her and called out to her pokemon to help. To her astonishment and horror, Captain didn't move at her command, ignoring her entirely, "Captain!"

Captain's dark eyes met hers and the yellow rodent shook her head.

No.

No? Why shouldn't she interfere? The two pokemon where circling each other, reading waiting for one of them to make the first move. Kelli was sitting out of harm's way with no obvious intent of joining in. What was happening?

Sparky watched with a sense of fascination as the charmander leapt forward, claws bared at her larger opponent. As Peralta stepped to one side, her feet touched the ground and she pivoted, swinging her tail to slap him in the face. The raticate staggered a few steps back, the fur on one side of his face singed but he was otherwise unharmed.

There was an odd beauty to watching Flame fight, Sparky couldn't help but envy it. When she fought alongside Captain, it would be a mess of her shouting commands over the snarls and shrieks of the opposing pokemon, lightning arching through the maze's pathways as her pikachu struggled to interpret her words in the heat of the moment. When Flame fought with Ignus, there was a silent grace to it. Without a word, Ignus would snake toward her opponent, fire crackling dangerously as human and pokemon honed in on their victim with deadly precision.

Ignus stayed low to the ground, darting to the side as Peralta charged at her. Sparky snuck a look at Flame to see his eyes glittering with concern. His hands were clenched into fists by his side and he didn't even blink as he watched the fight. Neither of them had any way of knowing the raticate's level of power. But judging from the scars that mangled his body, he had to have been incredibly experienced.

Ignus swiped at Peralta's face and the raticate ducked, her claws passing harmlessly over his nicked and torn ears. Before she could regain her balance, he sprang at her, knocking her to the ground. Her mouth opened wide and Sparky caught sight of a reddish glow burning at the back of her her throat as she prepared to unleash her Fire Blast attack, but Peralta was at her side in a flash, smashing her head against the floor.

He took a step back, looking down at Ignus's unconscious form with what Sparky guessed to be a look of distaste before he let out a growl. Kelli hurried over to them with a Super Potion in her mouth. Peralta roughly nudged Ignus back to her feet and faced her, claws and teeth bared for another assault.

Flame's eyes narrowed slightly and Ignus dipped her head slightly in what Sparky interpreted to be a nod. She darted to one side, attempting a feint but Peralta was faster. He slammed into her, sending her skidding ungracefully across the ground before slamming into her with an attack that Sparky recognised to be Skull Bash.

This went on. Sparky didn't count how many times Peralta knocked Ignus to the ground before Kelli approached with one of the Super Potions and the cycle started over again. Half the time, she couldn't even bear to watch the small reptile's face contorting in pain as Peralta tore into her, reddening the stone floor with droplets of her blood. By the end of it all, Ignus couldn't physically get up, exhaustion weighing down on her despite her wounds being healed. Peralta simply cast her another dissatisfied look before turning to growl something unintelligible at Flame and vanishing into the depths of the maze, Kelli close behind.

Flame approached Ignus, shrugging off his jacket and gingerly wrapping her in it, as gentle as if he believed that any sudden movement would break her like a delicate china doll. He placed her by the wall, far away from where splotches of her blood dappled the ground and slumped down beside her, head in his hands.

His shoulders shook and Sparky could hear the sound of muffled sobs and shuddering breaths. It was so strange to listen to somebody so silent cry. Though Sparky had heart the occasional sigh or laugh from him, it still felt almost unnatural to hear any kind of noise coming from him.

Captain was at his side within seconds and Sparky shook her head to clear it. What was she thinking? A boy had just watched his pokemon be brutally shredded before him and all she could think about was how strange it was to watch him cry. If _she'd_ have had to see Captain ripped apart by a dirty raticate, she would probably have reacted the same way.

Tentatively, she approached him. She'd never been very good at comforting people at all, let alone people who'd been trapped in a maze for weeks with their life suddenly in the hands of a maniac. One of her hands hovered awkwardly over Flame's trembling form as she debated whether or not to pat him on the back. Would that be comforting or invasive of his personal space? She had no clue.

What was she supposed to say? 'There there, everything's going to be alright.'? He'd already been beaten by a rat; there was no reason to lie to him, too. 'Would you care to tell me what exactly happened?'? That sounded a tad bit insensitive.

"That's it, just... Just breathe..." She sounded ridiculous, but it was better than any of the other options she'd thought of. He hesitantly rested her hovering hand on his back, "You can... Talk about this when you're feeling better."

Talk about it? Seriously? Had she really just said that? She knew that she was bad at this, but she had never thought she'd be _that_ bad. Talk about it...

She was about to pull away in embarrassment when Flame moved. She flinched in surprise as he suddenly wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, burying his tear-streaked face in her shoulder.

* * *

Ignus was as still as a corpse. The only sign that she was still alive was the faint rise and fall of her chest and the flicker of the flame on her tail as she lay on the rough concrete floor.

Flame stumbled over to her, his legs feeling too weak to support himself. He pulled off his jacket, unable to tear his eyes away from her. She looked so small, so helpless as she lay there, surrounded by splatters of her own blood.

He'd seen her hurt before. He'd seen her beaten before. But he'd never seen anything like _this_. He'd never expected to have to see her ripped to pieces again and again, kept alive by a stockpile of potions as she was forced to face her opponent again the moment she'd been healed until she collapsed from sheer exhaustion. He felt sick. If he'd ever known what Peralta was intending on putting Ignus through, he would have never agreed to let him train them. Even if it meant defeat at the hands of Ice, what could the man possibly do that would be worse than this?

Even though he knew all of her injuries had been healed, he was careful as he wrapped his jacket around her. She was his starter, the single pokemon he was to be closest to. It was his duty as a pokemon trainer to not let her down like this. He was supposed to keep her out of needlessly bloody fights. It was the least he could do for her in return for the protection she'd given him. He set her down by the wall and unable to stay standing, slid down next to her.

If Peralta could do so much damage to her, what hope did they have against Ice? It didn't matter if Ignus evolved by then, the man was more powerful than Flame ever could become in just five days. What was the use in putting Ignus through so much pain when they would never be able to achieve the goal they set out to reach?

He hardly cared about what would happen if they lost the match anymore. What was the worst Ice could do? If he was going to kill them, he wouldn't bother with a fight. He must have known that Ignus had no chance of winning.

When Peralta would appear the next day as he'd promised, Flame was going to turn him down. He wasn't going to let what had just happened repeat itself. He didn't care what Peralta would do, if he would personally attack Flame or worse. He wasn't going to let Ignus get hurt again. He wasn't going to let himself fail as a trainer. As a friend. As a person.

Then why did he feel as if he'd already failed to be all of those?

He felt his vision blur and he buried his face in his hands. What was Ignus going to say when she woke up? Neither of them had any idea what they were in for when they'd agreed to let Peralta train them, but Flame should have been at least suspicious. He shouldn't have blindly trusted him. He would have thought that his time in the maze would have taught him to know better than that.

His eyes burned with warm tears that streamed down his face.

He was hopeless.

He didn't even try to control the sobs that rattled him.

Hopeless.

Captain had approached him. She was trying to reassure him with words of false hope.

" _You'll be okay._ " She said, though even she didn't sound as if she believed it, " _You're going to be fine. We're going to get through this, you'll see!_ "

Somebody else was at his side. Sparky crouched awkwardly beside him, unsure how to react to his breakdown. He felt a tentative hand on his shoulder.

"That's it, just... Just breathe..." She sounded about as certain as Captain, but at least she didn't appear to be denying the helpless position the four of them were in, "You can... Talk about this when you're feeling better." She broke off suddenly, as if she'd just realised what she'd said.

Talk about it? More than anything, he wished he could. He wanted to pour his heart out to her, to tell her about the stupid deal he'd made and how with every passing day, he found himself doubting they'd ever find freedom a little more. He didn't want the amount of thoughts and opinions he could share be restricted by how many pages he had left in a notebook. He didn't want to be a silent freak, a mysterious figure for people to whisper and wonder about.

He didn't care if it meant he lost the ability to communicate with pokemon. As cowardly as it made him feel, at least he wouldn't have to face Ignus in the wake of Peralta's barbaric training.

In that moment, he didn't think. He felt Sparky flinch at his touch as he pulled her into a hug and her arms hesitantly wrapped around his trembling shoulders.

They stayed that way for a while before Flame pulled away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. Without hesitation, he drew out his notebook and told her everything. This fears, his concerns, the oncoming battle with Ice looming over him where he had to face the man alone or face the consequences, the fact that he was beginning to wonder if it was even worth trying. What did he hope to gain from going on, other than more suffering for himself and others? His handwriting was a barely legible scrawl but he couldn't care less. He just wanted to share all of this with another human being.

Sparky read it with an unreadable expression. She sat back, lost in thought for a minute and then her expression hardened.

"You're going to fight Ice." It wasn't a question. "You're going to put that bastard in his place."

Had she been listening to anything he'd just said? Flame shook his head, snatching his notebook back. She had to have gone insane. He couldn't fight him; what chance did he have of actually winning? He couldn't even defeat Peralta.

Sparky got to her feet and looked down at him, her expression dead serious, "When Ignus wakes up, she's going to fight me." She said, "The two of us are going to train in a safe environment so that when Peralta gets back, you'll be more of a match against him. First, you're going to beat that raticate, then you're going to beat Ice. You said I can't help in the final battle itself, but I can help you train for it."

Flame glanced over at Captain, " _Are you okay with this?_ " He asked her.

Captain shrugged, " _If it's going to help you beat two of my least favourite people, I'll be perfectly happy for you and Ignus to use me as a training dummy._ "

Flame smiled weakly and turned back to Sparky, nodding his head as he felt a glimmer of confidence flare inside him.

Sparky helped him to his feet and hesitated, as if she wanted to say something else. She shook her head as if dismissing the thought and turned to gather the Super Potions Kelli had left lying beside the maze wall, "Let's move away from this." She gestured to the bloody patches smeared across the floor.

Flame was only too happy to leave that scene. Careful not to wake her, he picked Ignus up and followed Sparky down the path.


	17. Part One: Chapter Seventeen - Reveal

AN: I'm going to try and update weekly from now on. Or at least, finish another chapter about every seven days.

Please, tell me what you think after reading this chapter.

* * *

 _Part One: Chapter Seventeen_

The world was a blur of light and colours.

Ignus groaned, closing her eyes. Too bright...

" _... Ignus?_ " A voice called to her, filled with concern.

She groaned, trying to force her thoughts into order. What was the last thing she remembered?

 _Peralta's claws glinting in the maze's electrical lighting. Blood dripping from her scales. Exhaustion dragging her down. Tired. So tired. Flame's voice, panicked. So tired. Snarling. Fire. Useless. Useless. Useless. Peralta too strong. Kelli with potions. No. No, stop. Claws slicing. Fire. The ground. Potion. So tired. Ground. No fire. Useless. Can't move. So tired. Potion. Shouting. Panic. Can't move. Tired. Useless. Slash. Blood. Ground. Can't. No more._

Her eyes flew open and she scrambled to her feet, an Ember burning in her throat as she prepared to launch it at Peralta, but the raticate was gone. She let the flames dissipate as she flopped back down onto Flame's jacket. So tired...

" _How do you feel?_ " Captain asked her, approaching her makeshift bed.

" _How does it look like I feel?_ " Ignus murmured, pulling the sleeve of Flame's jacket over her to to make a blanket, " _How long was I out for?_ "

" _I'm not sure. A few hours, I suppose. Flame was scared you wouldn't wake up, but I told him that all your injuries had been healed and you'd fainted from tiredness rather than a lack of HP._ "

Ignus's gaze slid behind Captain's form to rest on Flame. Her trainer was sitting against the wall, staring hard at the floor as if he were doing his best to avoid eye contact with her. Ignus looked away.

" _He's been worried._ " Captain said, noticing where Ignus had been looking, " _I think he also blames himself a little for what happened. He did agree to this, after all. Without really asking for your consent, too. But he regrets it, he really does._ "

Ignus was sure he did. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her front paws. On one hand, she felt bad about not being strong enough to hold her own in a fight against Peralta. But on the other hand, she shouldn't have been surprised. Anybody could see that he was stronger and more experienced than her; she had no hope of winning. Flame should have seen that. He should have seen her for what she was rather than what he wanted her to be. She wasn't an all-powerful charizard just yet. She was still just a tiny lizard with next to no idea what she was doing, relying her trainer to guide her. It was his job to know what the extent of her powers were.

But should she really blame him? He was after all, still a rookie just like her. He had been desperate and at the time, not entirely certain what he was getting them into.

Did she blame him? Yes. No matter how bad she felt, couldn't help it. She would always blame him for what had just happened. But she wasn't going to let that damage their bond. Trainers made bad choices all the time, she couldn't expect her own to be perfect.

" _It's ok._ " She murmured sleepily, drifting off once more, " _I forgive you._ "

Captain instantly jostled her awake.

" _You can't go to sleep just yet._ " The pikachu told her, a hint of agitation in her voice, " _We need to get ready for tomorrow when Peralta comes back!_ "

Ignus jumped to her feet, all tiredness forgotten, " _What?_ "

Flame looked guiltily away, " _Sparky says we're going to keep up your training_." He mumbled, " _You're going to fight Captain so you can level up faster before challenging Peralta. That way, you'll gain more experience and you might have a chance of beating him..._ " His voice trailed away.

Ignus sat, down, breathing deeply as Captain took a few nervous steps back, " _You saw what happened... You saw me fight Peralta... You... You saw what he did!_ " Her eyes snapped open and she rounded on him, " _And now you're saying that you're just going to let him tear me to shreds!_ "

This couldn't be happening. She suppressed a shiver as she remembered Peralta's filthy claws ripping through her scales. She remembered gasping for breath as his crushing weight pressed down on her ribcage, threatening to snap her fragile bones. The floor growing slippery with her blood. Yellowed teeth stained red. She felt sick. Her trainer was going to let that happen again. He was going to stand by and watch her fight until she couldn't stand. Until no amount of healing items could get her back onto her feet.

" _You're not- You're going to get stronger!_ " Flame protested, but his voice was hesitant and feeble. He cast a panicked look at Sparky, but Captain's trainer said nothing. " _I'm not going to let Peralta keep doing this to you!_ "

" _Then tell him to leave! Don't make me fight him again!_ " How could he be so stupid? It wasn't rocket science. He just needed to tell the dirty pest that he wasn't wanted anymore.

" _If he leaves, we'll lose against Ice!_ "

" _Who cares? I'll lose against him anyway!_ " Her voice had risen into a shout and the air around her began to simmer from the heat radiating from her body, " _I can't beat Peralta, I can't beat Ice! I'll die before I do either! I know you want me to, but I can't!_ " She drew in a shuddering breath and unable to stand the look of sheer disappointment on Flame's face, whirled around and stumbled away.

She closed her eyes as she ran blindly through the twisting paths. He wanted her to win. He needed her to win. But she couldn't. Five days wasn't near enough time to prepare. He'd set her up to fail. He wanted her to win these impossible battles and had the nerve to feel dismayed when she lay on the ground in a bloody heap.

It was his fault. But it was her fault for being weak and letting herself try to place the blame on her trainer. He had gotten her into this mess. But she should forgive him and stop being so selfish, nobody was perfect. He had the right to make mistakes. But he should have known better. But would she have made a different decision had she been in his place? His thoughts were on the outcome of Peralta's training, not what had to be done in order to get where she needed to be.

She skidded to a stop. How immature it was to literally run from her problems! Flame needed her. Captain needed her. Sparky needed her. She was the one who was to battle against Ice's pokemon. How could she be so self-centred to leave Flame to suffer by himself?

She screwed her eyes shut. Back when Peralta had captured her - the same pokemon that was nonchalantly spraying the walls of the maze with her blood - he'd said it was her duty to protect her trainer. She'd accepted, never once considering a circumstance that would make her lose faith in whether or not her trainer deserved protecting.

The thought horrified her. Had she really just considered that? Considered that maybe Flame wasn't worth protecting? No, never. He had made a poor choice and damaged Ignus's faith in him, but he didn't deserve to face Ice alone. Nobody did. As a human, he had to learn from his mistakes. And as his pokemon, Ignus had to guide him on his journey. That's what she'd sworn to do, after all. Back when she had been caught...

 _The raticate had released her from the Poke Ball he'd just trapped her in, his dark eyes glittering dangerously._ "I'm only going to tell you this once, so listen closely. _" He said. His voice was calm, but there was an edge to his words._

 _Ignus crouched low to the ground, her claws extended in anticipation. The scarred rodent had come out of nowhere, striking her before she knew what had happened and cramming her into the red and white ball that was now laying harmlessly to one side. Her tail lashed, showing him the flame that was burning bright at its tip. If it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he was getting. She was ready this time._

 _If he was intimidated at all, the raticate didn't show it. He looked at her, unimpressed as he continued, "_ Somebody's going to choose you. A trainer. You're going to be their starter pokemon. _"_

 _Ignus perked up a little at this. A starter? Her? Many wild pokemon had desires to become trained and travel the world with a human companion, and she'd heard all kinds of stories from veteran pokemon who'd been released by their ageing trainers. She shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts. She wasn't going to trust this pokemon so soon._

 _"_ Whoever chooses you - I don't care if you don't like them - protect them. _" The raticate said, never once taking his eyes off her, "_ Defend them until your last breath. No matter what. You don't abandon this trainer, you don't leave this trainer. Even if they release you in favour of something stronger, follow him or her and protect them from harm. Do you understand me?"

 _She couldn't help but flinch a little in astonishment. She'd wanted to be a trained pokemon for years, but... This was starting to sound a little too intense, even for her. Was she expected to give her life for a human she didn't even know?_

 _But wasn't that was being a trained pokemon all about? Travelling with a companion, bonding over victories and defeats, staying by your trainer's side through thick and thin. And yes, if it came to be that way, giving up one's life to defend their partner. A partner that means the world to them. A partner that wouldn't hesitate to give their own life for their pokemon._

 _Without another moment of hesitation, she gave her answer._

Flame had finally caught up to her, looking amazed that he hadn't lost her in the maze's paths. He began to say something, but Ignus cut him off.

" _There's no need._ " She said, walking over to him, the strength in her legs fully retuning since her rest in his jacket, " _After the fight, you had time to think. To reflect. Whatever choice you've made now... I'll be right behind you on it. I trust you._ "

He knelt down and she jumped into his arms. He held her close to his chest. " _You weren't wrong to doubt me, though._ " He said quietly, " _I still don't completely know what I'm doing_."

" _Have we ever?_ " Ignus asked tiredly and he laughed.

" _No, we never have._ " He agreed. He placed her back down on the ground and straightened up, flashing her a smile edged with growing confidence, " _Are you ready?_ "

" _I'm ready when you are._ "

Side by side, they made their way back to where the others were waiting.

* * *

"You know, you seem like an interesting person." Ice said, "I'd love to have a proper conversation with you sometime. You know, when you're not thinking of murdering me, that is."

"I'm not thinking of murdering you." Rain said through gritted teeth, folding his arms and glaring at the man before him, "You don't know me."

Ice shrugged, "Who knows?" He said airily, "Sometimes, you end up committing accidental murders. It happens to the best of us."

Rain hissed a sigh and shot the man in his dream an angry look, "What do you want, anyway?" He demanded. Two 'nights' had passed since Ice had first visited him in this manner. Fortunately, he hadn't been violently assaulted again. Although that didn't make Rain any happier to see him.

Ice tipped his head to one side and his eyes sparkled as if he was about to tell a joke, "I'm going to break you." He said cheerfully, "Surely you must have noticed that by now. You're too haughty and aloof. If you were given the chance, you'd leave everybody behind and go your own way. I want you to depend on the others."

"Why the hell would you want that?"

Ice shook his head, looking as amused as his mask allowed him to appear, "I've got to keep a few secrets here. Though I suppose it won't hurt to spill a few..." He paused for a moment, "But it's so much more fun to keep all of you in the dark."

Rain rolled his eyes and turned away. He had never thought that this dark presence that had loomed over them since the very first day could be so... _Annoying_. He would have preferred if Ice had instead challenged him to a fight. Then, at least he'd know what the freak wanted.

"You could be so much fun." Ice carried on, "Why do you have to be so boring?" He sighed and shook his head again, "What a pity. You're interesting until I talk to you. I always loved to watch you interact with the others. You're this perfect blend of irritable and sarcastic that never ceases to amaze me. Though it looks like you've been cutting down on that lately now that you're working a little better with Leaf. What a pity."

"Why don't you go annoy her?" Rain muttered, "You'll get a better reaction out of her."

"Ah, but Leaf knows her limitations." Ice said, "She always did. All she needs is a little more pushing out of her comfort zone to become a good - or, I dare say - _great_ trainer. You, on the other hand, are cocky."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"You despise working with others."

"Yeah, I know."

"You never want to outwardly admit when you're to blame for something."

"Anything else?"

"Uh-uh, no." Rain could detect a gleeful edge to his tone, "We're going to have to work on all of that. You're a downright unbearable person, Rainor Oak." He bristled at the sound of Ice calling him that, "If you're lying here in the maze in pain, nobody in their right mind would stop to save you if given the chance."

Rain laughed at his words, "You're wrong there." He said, "The others are too noble to let that happen. I swear, they'll try and save your raticates if they saw one of them dying."

"True, true." Ice chuckled, "I have to admit, that's pretty cute. But all the same, when it's your time, nobody's going to help. Trust me, you're an insufferable brat. There's not one thing that the other children admire about you and if given the choice, I'm sure they won't bat an eye to see you removed from their little group. Their biggest concern would not be your safety, but the fact that they'll have one less pokemon to defend them." His smug voice made Rain's blood boil, "How does that feel, Oak? Leaf, Flame and Sparky would miss your squirtle more than they'd miss you."

Rain ground his teeth together, unable to think up a response. Everything Ice had said was true; Rain had just never let himself care about it. He'd spent years not having to consider what others thought of him and he wasn't going to let this masked creep change that.

"What's the point of all this?" Rain snarled in the silence that followed, spinning around to face him, "Why bother sending these raticates after us and invading my dreams?"

The mask may have covered his mouth, but Rain knew that Ice was smiling, "I have some good reasons." He said calmly, "The raticates are to keep you on your toes and make sure you don't lose your edge. I can't have you two going soft on me. And as for this..." He gestured vaguely around them and in a flash, he was standing before Rain, fingers digging painfully into his shoulders as something wild glinted in his wide blue eyes, "This is to remind you that I'm in complete control of everything that happens in this maze. Don't you forget that, Oak. You don't have a choice in what goes on here. None of you do. Not one of you five."

Rain stiffened, the pain of Ice's nails being driven into his arms forgotten.

Five?

"Oh." Ice seemed to have read his mind. He took a step back, releasing Rain from his grip. "Oh." There was a pause, "I think I might have said too much."

Rain jerked awake just in time to see Ice's hypno vanished and let out a snarl of frustration. He looked around to see Leaf, Quinn and Kojo all slumped unconscious nearby and sighed. Ice definitely had complete and utter control over them. No doubt about it.

He was about to shake them awake and spitefully berate Leaf for falling asleep when she was supposed to be keeping watch when he felt a shudder passing down his spine. The feeling that he was being watched suddenly washed over him once again.

He looked up and down the passage but was met with the cold emptiness of the maze's endless corridors. He frowned, something was definitely out there, just out of his sight. Whatever it was, it was sticking close to them, yet didn't want to be seen. But if it was malicious, it should have attacked them by now.

Ice's words echoed in his ears. _'None of you five.'_ Could he have meant that there was a fifth child trapped in the maze? One that they had somehow been unable to find? But Ice had said and proven that he controlled everything that went on in the maze. That meant that he'd purposely kept this fifth child away from them, forcing him or her to fight through whatever he threw at them alone.

No wonder they hadn't approached them yet - if Rain's silent watcher really was this mysterious fifth child. They probably had no idea if he and Leaf were just another of Ice's tricks or not.

"We're not going to hurt you." He called softly, feeling his face heat up at how ridiculous he must have looked, talking to something he wasn't sure what exactly it was. He was just running on the assumption that this hidden figure was the fifth child that Ice had let slip. All the same, he persisted, "We're lost, like you. We won't hurt you, I promise."

For a moment, he wondered if he'd been imagining the feeling of watchful eyes focused on him. But then he heard a shuffling sound down the path to his right. There was another pause and then the sound of running footsteps echoed through the empty corridor, getting softer and softer as the onlooker ran from them.

In an instant, Rain was on his feet and chasing after the quieting noise. He turned a corner and was met with an intersection. He froze, straining his ears for the sound of their escaping watcher but was met with nothing.

Disgruntled, he returned to where Leaf and the others were still sleeping. He woke the girl up with a kick to the ribs and Kojo almost strangled him upon waking up to his trainer's pained and startled shriek. Quinn rolled over and went back to sleep.

"Let's go." Rain muttered, shutting out Leaf's annoyed rambling about how unnecessary it was to wake her up in such a manner. After some hesitation, Kojo stood by her side and flicked his vines in what he must have thought was a threatening manner. Rain had no clue what kind of opinion the ivysaur had of his trainer anymore. Not that he cared. He picked up Quinn, who was pretending to be asleep and tucked him under his arm before turning his back on them.

He cast one last look behind him before leaving the place behind. He'd been so close to discovering who exactly their watcher was. As much as he believed it to be so, he didn't want to assume that they would be Ice's fifth child. He needed - and wanted - to see what they were and know what they were doing here. He hoped whoever they were could be an ally; he'd grown tired of enemies.

As the two young trainers and their pokemon disappeared around the bend, a young girl with white-blonde hair peeked around the corner behind which she had been hiding.

She chewed her lip as she glanced down at the pokemon by her side. Her lone companion nodded. The boy had expressed a desire to talk with them, though the girl wasn't ready yet. Was he to be trusted? And what about the girl with the ivysaur? Were they victims of Ice's maze or just tricks to tempt her to let her guard down?

Despite her suspicions, she tentatively followed.


	18. Chapter Eighteen - End?

Hello all!

I'm just going to get to the point here: I'll be discontinuing _Singular_. I'm sorry to those who enjoyed the story, but I've been feeling less and less motivated to work on it. As well as that, I didn't have much of a plan for Part One, so it's basically a mishmash of ideas with no real order that I'm throwing around.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that this is the end. Most of my ideas were for Part Two and Three, after the kids escaped from the maze and found themselves in the real world. So what I've decided is to reboot _Singular_ , except with less trauma, a faster pace, an altered plot and no maze. Ice will remain a prominent character, but he'll be introduced later on.

I feel the need to apologise for the unsolved mysteries of the maze. But fear not; this new story will bring forth more conflicts and mysteries as our heroes take the perilous journey across Kanto.

I'll post the new story once I finish drawing a cover image and have written a few more chapters in advance. I don't know when it'll be ready, as I'll be really busy in the following weeks and months as this is my final year of high school, but once I graduate (or in the time leading up to my graduation) I'll be able to start posting again.

So to close this fic off and to follow the rules of regarding the fact that each chapter has to have an actual narrative, I'll leave you with this:

* * *

Sparky gasped for breath as she kneeled on the hard concrete, hands clutching at her cracked ribs. Rain, for the first time since they'd set foot in the maze, showed a glimpse of compassion toward Quinn as he ran over to the unmoving squirtle, cradling him protectively in his arms.

Leaf stumbled backward, wincing as the back of her head slammed against the wall. She slowly slid down, her white cap tumbling to the ground. Kojo whirled around to cast a worried glance at his trainer. The moment of distraction was all his opponent needed to take him unawares and send him sprawling.

Flame faced their faceless opponent, determined to stay defiant until the very end despite his legs threatening to give out. Ignus was scratched and bleeding, teeth bared in a furious snarl.

"It's no use."

Flame whirled around. Ice stood behind him, eyes betraying a weariness that took the boy by surprise.

"It's no use." Ice said again, shaking his head.

Their faceless opponent advanced.

It's no use.

Captain sent one last bolt of electricity through their opponent before her form flickered and vanished from view.

Flame felt his heart sink and Sparky's distressed cry echoed through the passages of the maze before she too disappeared.

 _It's no use._

Rain squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself. His form twisted and Quinn clattered to the floor.

 _It's no use._

A moment later, the squirtle was gone, too.

 _It's no use._

Leaf's unconscious body twitched and she began to fade. Kojo dragged himself toward where his trainer lay, eyes wide.

 _Don't go!_

But she did. He soon followed.

Ignus spun around to face Flame. Her mouth opened to say something. A cry of distress? A final goodbye? Flame would never know.

It was just the three of them. Flame, Ice, and the mysterious enemy.

Ice sighed. He was no longer the omnipotent foe that Flame had come to fear so much. He closed his eyes, accepting his inevitable fate.

"I'm sorry. It… It wasn't supposed to happen like this…"

His body distorted, limbs twisting and form flickering. For a moment, Flame glimpsed the face of a man behind his mask. And then he too was gone, leaving Flame alone.

Well, he wasn't quite alone.

The enemy remained. She – or at least, Flame assumed it was a she – raised her hand, long fingers pointing at Flame's lone figure standing in the centre of the maze's path.

Everybody was gone. Ignus, Leaf, Rain, Sparky, Kojo, Captain, Quinn… Even Ice. Everybody. Erased from existence just like that.

A shudder passed through his body and he could feel his insides twist and disintegrate. Still, he refused to tear his eyes away from the enemy.

 _This isn't the end._

He could feel his very being getting torn from the world. His vision blurred and began to fade. But still, he did not look away.

 _This isn't the end._

And then he was no more.

She was left, expressionless eyes scanning the remnants of her creation. Without a word, she raised her other hand and the maze itself began to fade. The rest of the world followed, leaving her alone to float in a blank expanse of nothingness.

The author let her arms fall to her sides, running a hand through her choppy brown hair as she looked around at the blank canvas that surrounded her. The lyrics to a song she had heard a long time ago edged its way to the front of her mind and she found herself softly singing along.

 _Destruction leads to a very rough road_

 _But it also breeds creation_

An involuntary smile crossed her features and she raised her hand once more. A new world began to form, colour rippling across the previously empty expanse. Trees sprouted out of nothingness, humans and pokemon shimmered into existence and sprang into motion and a vast glittering sea crashed into existence.

 _This isn't the end._ The author agreed as four children were brought back into the new world. Four pokemon with their futures entwined were reborn. A man with half his face covered by a mask breathed for the first time. A great destiny bloomed inside the mind of the author as she crafted the renewed universe with her own hands.

THIS ISN'T THE END.


End file.
